NOAHBROOJCS 

.  .  '•-•'•'  If'       :'• 


NIHIAL  EDITIOH 
1809-1909 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


BUST  OF  ABRAHAM   LINCOLN 

BY    MAX    BACHMANN 
Copyright,  1908,  by  Max  Bachmann} 


Centennial  j£bition 


Abraham  Lincoln 

The  Nation's  Leader  in  the  Great 

Struggle  through  which  was 

Maintained  the  Existence 

of  the  United  States 


By 

Noah    Brooks 

Author  of  "American  Statesmen,"  "Henry  Knox,"  "Washington 
in  Lincoln's  Time,"  u  History  of  the  United  States,"  etc. 


National  Tribune 

Washington,  D.  C. 


COPYRIGHT  BY 
G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


TtDe  ftnicbcrbocfter  press,  flew  tforfc 


PREFACE  TO  NEW  EDITION. 

THE  character  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  as  the  years 
pass,  becomes  grander  and  more  heroic;  and, 
as  is  usual  when  a  commanding  figure  slowly  rises 
conspicuous  in  the  history  of  humanity,  traditions 
and  myths  are  already  beginning  to  cluster  around 
his  illustrious  personality.  The  simplest  truth  is 
always  best;  and  the  simpler  and  more  direct  the 
biographical  sketch  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  more 
deeply  will  his  image  be  impressed  upon  the  heart  of 
that  "common  people"  whom  he  loved  so  well  and 
of  which  he  was  the  noblest  representative.  In  this 
book  it  has  been  the  author's  aim  to  present  such  a 
picture  of  Lincoln  and  his  times  as  shall  leave  upon 
the  mind  of  the  reader  a  definite  and  authoritative 
likeness  of  the  man  whose  name  is  now  enrolled 
highest  among  the  types  of  our  national  ideals. 


PREFACE. 

IN  writing  this  brief  biography,  I  have  been  moved 
*  by  a  desire  to  give  to  the  present  generation,  who 
will  never  know  aught  of  Abraham  Lincoln  but  what 
is  traditional,  a  lifelike  picture  of  the  man  as  many 
men  knew  him.  To  do  this,  it  has  been  necessary 
to  draw  material  from  various  sources,  to  paint  in  a 
background  of  the  history  of  the  times  in  which  he 
lived,  and  to  place  the  illustrious  subject  in  his  true 
relation,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  events  in  which  he 
was  so  large  a  participant.  So  far  as  I  have  been 
ablg,  I  have  subordinated  the  events  to  the  man. 
'Tn  the  preparation  of  the  work,  I  have  been  greatly 
helped  by  many  authors ;  and  I  have  been  especially 
indebted  to  the  writings  of  Colonel  Ward  H.  Lamon, 
the  Hon.  Isaac  N.  Arnold,  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland,  John  G. 
Nicolay,  and  Colonel  John  Hay.  It  was  my  good 
fortune  to  know  Lincoln  with  some  degree  of  inti- 
macy, our  acquaintance  beginning  with  the  Fremont 
campaign  of  1856,  when  I  was  a  resident  of  Illinois, 
and  continuing  through  the  Lincoln-Douglas  can- 
vass,  two  years  later.  That  relation  became  more 
intimate  and  confidential  when,  in  1862,  I  met 
Lincoln  in  Washington,  and  saw  him  almost  daily 
until  his  tragical  death.  This  preliminary  egotism 
may  be  pardoned  by  way  of  explanation  of  the  fact 
that  many  things  relating  to  his  early  life,  herein  set 

vii 


viii  Preface 

down,  were  derived  from  his  own  lips,  often  during 
hours  of  secluded  companionship.  If  this  little 
book  shall  give  new  and  inspiring  views  of  Lincoln 
to  the  English-speaking  people,  I  shall  be  grateful 
that  I  have  been  permitted  to  write  it. 

NOAH  BROOKS. 


CONTENTS 


Condition  of  the  People  at  the  End  of  the  War  for  Indepen- 
dence —  Migrations  of  the  Earlier  Lincolns  —  A  Tragedy  in 
the  Wilderness — Abraham  Lincoln's  Parents  in  Kentucky — 
Birth  of  the  Future  President  —  The  Old  Kentucky  Home 
— Another  Migration — A  Great  Disaster  in  Indiana  ...  i 

CHAPTER  II 
THE    BOYHOOD   OF   LINCOLN 

The  Lincoln  Home  in  Indiana  —  Hard  Times — The  Boy  of  the 
Backwoods — Log  Cabin  Building — Abraham  Lincoln's  First 
Letter  —  The  Funeral  in  the  Wilderness  —  The  Boy's  First       12 
Book   .         is         •         . 

CHAPTER  III 
YOUNG  MANHOOD 

Thomas  Lincoln's  Second  Marriage — Improvements  in  the  Back- 
woods Home  —  More  Books  for  the  Boy  —  His  Horizon 
Enlarges  —  He  Learns  to  be  Thorough  —  Down  the  Missis- 
sippi— A  Glimpse  of  Slavery — Coming  out  of  the  Wilderness  27 

CHAPTER  IV 
THE    LINCOLNS    IN    ILLINOIS 

The  Land  of   Full-Grown  Men — Lincoln  Attains  his  Majority 
— Striking  Out  for  Himself  —  Another  River  Voyage  —  An 
Odd  Introduction  to  New  Salem — Some  Rough  and  Tumble 
Discipline — The  Backwoodsman  Conquers  Friends — He  Van- 
quishes English  Grammar     .         .         .         .         .         .         -43 

ix* 


Contents 


Young  Lincoln's  Growing  Passion  for  Knowledge  —  Candidate 
for  the  State  Legislature — Captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War 
—  A  Gathering  of  Men  Since  Famous  —  Hardships  of  the 
Volunteer  Soldiers — Stump-Speaking  and  Defeat — Lincoln 
as  a  Country  Merchant — Lawyer  and  Surveyor  .  .  -54 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE    YOUNG   POLITICIAN 

Elected  to  the  Legislature  —  Stump  Speaker  and  Political  De- 
bater —  Encounters  on  the  Stump — The  Lincoln-Stone  Pro- 
test against  Slavery — "The  Long  Nine" — Removal  of  the 
State  Capital  to  Springfield — Compliments  to  the  Sangamon 
Chief — Lincoln  a  Full-Fledged  Lawyer — Riding  the  Illinois 
Circuit — Distinguished  Associates  at  the  Bar — Lincoln  as  a 
Harrison  Man  .........  70 

CHAPTER  VII 

WINNING   HIS    WAY 

His  First  Love  Affair — A  Disappointment — Dark  Days — The 
Lincoln-Shields  "Duel" — Good  Advice  on  the  Subject  of 
Quarrelling — Lincoln  and  Van  Buren — A  Roadside  Sympo- 
sium— Congressional  Expectations  .....  80 

.      CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    RISING    POLITICIAN 

Lincoln's  Admiration  of  Henry  Clay  —  An  Irresponsive  Idol  — 
Slavery  and  the  Tariff — Lincoln  Elected  to  Congress — The 
Mexican  War — A  Queer  Nickname — Rise  of  the  Free-Soil 
Party  —  Election  of  General  Taylor —  Return  to  Springfield 
— The  Boys  of  Lincoln — A  Shiftless  Relative  ...  99 

CHAPTER  IX 
LINCOLN   THE    LAWYER 

An  Honest  Advocate  and  Counsellor — "  The  Snow  Boys  "  and 
Old  Man  Case — Famous  Lawsuits  about  Negroes — Jack 
Armstrong's  Son  on  Trial  for  Murder — Lincoln's  Vindication 
of  his  Old  Friend — How  the  Attorney  Looked  and  Spoke  .  121 


Contents  xi 

CHAPTER  X 
A   GREAT   AWAKENING  *AO* 

Stupor  Before  Excitement  —  A  Dead  Sea  of  Politics — Repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise — The  Migration  to  Kansas — 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  Meet  Again — A  Memorable  Debate — 
Lincoln  Withdraws  from  the  Canvass — Lyman  Trumbull 
Elected  to  the  Senate 131 

CHAPTER  XI 

THE   KANSAS    STRUGGLE 

Freedom  and  Slavery  Wrestle  with  Each  Other  —  "  Bleeding 
Kansas" — The  Troubles  of  Slave-Owners — The  Irrepressible 
Conflict — Lincoln's  Slowness  and  Reticence  .  .  .  144 

CHAPTER  XII 
THE    COMING   MAN 

Birth  of  the  Republican  Party — Nomination  of  Fremont — The 
Party  Lines  Drawn  —  A  Virulent  Campaign  —  Election  of 
James  Buchanan  —  Kansas  Reluctant  to  Consent  to 
Slavery 153 

CHAPTER  XIII 

LINCOLN   AND   DOUGLAS 

The  Famous  Contest  for  the  Senatorship — A  Battle  of  Giants 
— Douglas  and  Lincoln  Compared — Two  Self-made  Men  — 
Lincoln's  Autobiography — A  Series  of  Famous  Debates — 
The  Country  Intent  on  the  Struggle — A  Great  Lesson  in 
American  Politics .161 

CHAPTER  XIV 

AFTER   A   GREAT   STRUGGLE 

Condition  of  the  Two  Contestants  —  The  Crocodile  and  the 
Negro — Douglas  ir.  the  South — Lincoln  Nominated  by  Illi- 
nois Republicans  —  The  Rail-Splitting  Candidate  —  Some 
Pithy  Sayings  —  Lincoln  Speaks  in  New  York  —  The  Man 
from  Illinois  .  ...  .  .  .  .  .  .  179 


xii  Contents 

CHAPTER  XV 
ELECTED   TO   THE    PRESIDENCY  PAGB 

Rending  of  the  Democratic  Party — The  National  Convention  of 
1860 — Lincoln  Nominated  at  Chicago — A  Memorable  Scene 
—  Popular  Enthusiasm  —  Four  Tickets  in  the  Field  — 
Lincoln's  Great  Triumph 189 

CHAPTER  XVI 

AFTER   THE    ELECTION 

The  President-Elect  and  the  Office-Seekers — A  Policy  Demand- 
ed —  Treason  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet  —  Organization  of  the 
Rebel  Confederacy — Alarm  in  the  North  —  The  Star  of  the 
West  Fired  On — A  Peace  Congress  in  the  Face  of  War  .  203 


Lincoln's  Farewell  to  his  Fellow-Townsmen  —  Prayers  for  the 
President-Elect  —  Rush  of  the  People  to  See  Him — A  Series 
of  Remarkable  Speeches  —  Why  the  President  Would 
Wear  a  Beard  —  Rumors  of  Assassination  —  The  Night 
Journey  from  Harrisburg  to  the  Capital  .  .  .  .  2 19 

CHAPTER  XVIII 
LINCOLN'S  INAUGURATION 

A  Notable  Gathering  in  Washington  — The  First  Inaugural 
Address — How  it  was  Received  North  and  South — Precau- 
tions against  Plots — Formation  of  the  Cabinet — Represen- 
tative Men  .  ....  .  .  .  .  .  .  236 


In  the  White  House — Assembling  of  the  Rebel  Congress — Rebel 
Emissaries  Sent  to  Washington — A  Vigorous  Policy  Clam- 
ored for — The  First  Gun  at  Sumter — Great  Excitement 
throughout  the  Republic — A  Nation  in  Arms — Attack  on 
the  Sixth  Massachusetts — Notable  Deaths  .  .  .  .  25 1 


Contents 


CHAPTER  XX 
BEGINNING   OF   THE    GREAT   STRUGGLE  PAOB 

The  Combatants  Face  to  Face  —  The  First  Battle  of  Bull  Run 

—  The  Sting  of  Defeat—  George  B.  McClellan  —  Effect  of  the 
Great  Disaster  —  A  Message  to  Congress  —  Men  and  Money 
Voted  —  How  Foreign    Nations    Regarded   the   Struggle  — 
Seizure  and  Release  of  Mason  and  Slidell    .         .         .         -275 

CHAPTER  XXI 

THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION    ARISES 

Fremont's  Troubles  in  Missouri  —  His  Policy  Disapproved  by 
the  President  —  General  Hunter's  Proclamation  Revoked  — 
Irritation  in  the  Border  States  —  Lincoln  Invites  a  Con- 
ference —  Arming  the  Freedmen  Proposed  —  Lincoln's  Letter 
to  Horace  Greeley  —  The  Emancipation  Proclamation  Issued  293 

CHAPTER  XXII 
A   DIFFICULT    MILITARY   SITUATION 

Creation  and  Equipment  of  an  Army  —  The  Federal  Military 
Plan  —  Retirement  of  General  Scott  —  General  McClellan 
in  Full  Command  —  Appearance  of  General  U.  S.  Grant  — 
Fall  of  Forts  Henry  and  Donelson  —  Criticism  of  McClellan 

—  Death  of  the  President's  Son  Willie  —  Military  Operations 
on  the  Peninsula  —  McClellan's  Extraordinary  Delays  —  His 
Advice  to  the   President  —  Halleck   Made  General-in-Chief 

—  A  Conference  of  Loyal  Governors  —  The  Second  Bull  Run 
Defeat  —  Antietam  —  McClellan  Relieved  of  His  Command  .     318 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE   TURNING   OF   THE   TIDE 

The  Battle  of  Fredericksburg  —  Rise  of  the  Peace  Party  —  Fac- 
tions in  Congress  —  The  Battle  of  Chancellorsville  —  A  Con- 
scription Ordered  and  Martial  Law  Declared  —  Colored 
Troops  Enlisted  —  Great  Financial  Measures  Afoot  —  Vallan- 
digham's  Expulsion  and  Return  —  Growth  of  the  Anti-War 
Sentiment  —  Fall  of  Vicksburg  and  Battle  of  Gettysburg  — 
Popular  Rejoicings  —  The  President's  Proclamation  of  Thanks- 
giving —  Draft  Riots  in  New  York  —  Lincoln's  Address  on 
the  Field  of  Gettysburg  —  Grant  and  Sherman  in  the  West  349 


xiv  Contents 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

POLITICAL   COMPLICATIONS  PAOB 

A  "President -Making"  Congress — Activity  of  Lincoln's  Op- 
ponents— Grant  Appointed  Lieutenant-General — Beginning 
of  an  Aggressive  Campaign  —  Federal  Successes  in  the 
Southwest  —  Sheridan  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah — 
Political  Troubles  in  Missouri — Lincoln  Renominated — Mc- 
Clellan  the  Democratic  Nominee  —  A  Diversion  in  Favor 
of  Fremont — Peace  Negotiations  at  Niagara — Five  Hundred 
Thousand  Men  Called  Out — Lincoln  Re-elected — Renewed 
Talk  of  Peace — A  Peace  Conference  at  Hampton  Roads 
—  "The  President's  Last,  Shortest,  and  Best  Speech" — 
The  Second  Inauguration  .  .  .  .  .  .  .382 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE    FAMILY    IN    THE    WHITE    HOUSE 

Plain  Living  and  Simple  Manners — Lincoln's  Kindness  and 
His  Righteous  Wrath — The  Sons  of  Lincoln — The  Boy  of 
the  White  House — Threats  of  Assassination — The  President's 
Dealings  with  Office-Seekers — Sundry  Anecdotes  .  .415 


CHAPTER  XXVI 
THE    PRESIDENT   AND   HIS   CABINET 

Popular  Expectation  that  Secretary  Seward  would  be  the 
Leading  Spirit  of  the  New  Administration — Mr.  Lincoln's 
Firmness  and  Kindness  with  the  Secretary  of  State — Mr. 
Stanton's  Criticisms  of  Lincoln  —  Why  Secretary  Cameron 
left  the  Cabinet — The  Exit  of  Postmaster-General  Blair — 
Secretary  Chase's  Restiveness  —  His  Subsequent  Appoint- 
ment as  Chief -Justice  —  The  President  Deferred  to  the 
Ministers .  427 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

END   OF   A   STRANGE    EVENTFUL   HISTORY 

Symptoms  of  a  Collapse  of  the  Confederacy — Lee  Seeks  a  Parley 
with  Grant  —  The  Fall  of  Richmond  —  Flight  of  the  Rebel 


Contents  xv 

PAGE 

Government  —  Lincoln  in  the  Former  Rebel  Capital  —  He 
Goes  to  the  Front  —  The  Surrender  of  Lee  —  Great  Joy  of 
the  People — The  National  Capital  in  a  Frenzy  of  Delight 
Lincoln's  Last  Public  Speech  —  His  Death  and  Funeral  — 
Conclusion 441 

INDEX 459 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 


PACING 
PAGE 


Bust  of  Abraham  Lincoln          .         .  Frontispiece 

By  Max  Bachmann. 
(Copyright,  ipo8,  by  Max  Bachmann.') 

Lincoln's  Wrestle  with  Armstrong      .         .         .     120 

From  the  drawing  by  A .  Frederick. 

A  Mississippi  Fiat-Boat   .....     200 

From  a  drawing  by  W.  J.  Wilson. 

Abraham  Lincoln  and  His  Son  "  Tad"      .         .    384 

From  an  oil  painting  by  F.  B.  Carpenter. 
(Courtesy  of  W.  C.  Crane,  Esq.) 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN 

AND 

THE    DOWNFALL    OF    AMERICAN    SLAVERY 

BY 
NOAH   BROOKS 


The  Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

CHAPTER  I. 

THE    LINCOLN   ANCESTRY. 

Condition  of  the  People  at  the  End  of  the  War  for  Independence — • 
Migrations  of  the  Earlier  Lincolns — A  Tragedy  in  the  Wilderness 
— Abraham  Lincoln's  Parents  in  Kentucky — Birth  of  the  Future 
President — The  Old  Kentucky  Home — Another  Migration — A 
Great  Disaster  in  Indiana. 

AT  the  end  of  the  war  of  the  American  Revolution 
the  condition  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
was  one  of  deep  poverty.  The  credit  of  the  govern- 
ment was  not  good.  Money  was  scarce.  There  was 
no  mint  for  coinage  of  American  specie,  and  the 
paper  currency  authorized  by  the  Continental  Con- 
gress was  very  low  in  value.  Immediately  after  the 
end  of  the  war,  the  young  republic  had  had  a  slight 
wave  of  prosperity.  Various  kinds  of  useful  manu- 
factures had  been  established,  and  people  dwelling 
in  cities  were  at  ease,  and  they  who  dwelt  on  planta- 
tions and  farms  were  plentifully  supported  by  the 
yields  of  their  acres,  flocks,  and  herds. 

But  this  did  not  last  long.  Very  soon  the  coun- 
try was  deluged  with  English  goods,  and,  instead 
of  being  large  exporters,  the  people  of  the  United 
States  imported  more  than  they  sent  away.  During 


2  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  two  years  next  succeeding  the  declaration  of 
peace,  the  value  of  goods  imported  from  England 
was  about  thirty  million  dollars,  while  those  exported 
did  not  amount  to  nine  millions.  At  the  beginning 
of  1783,  the  public  debt  of  the  republic  was  about 
forty-two  millions,  and  the  debts  of  the  separate 
States,  added  together,  were  about  one  half  of  that 
sum.  Specie  went  rapidly  out  of  the  country  to  pay 
for  imports,  and  the  almost  worthless  currency 
remaining  was  all  that  the  people  had  for  daily  use. 

So  great  was  this  depression  among  the  towns  and 
villages  of  the  old  thirteen  States  that  many  families 
began  to  turn  their  eyes  and  thoughts  westward, 
where,  it  was  said,  was  a  land  of  plenty.  There,  at 
least,  the  soil  yielded  abundantly;  the  forests  were 
filled  with  game,  the  rivers  with  fish,  and  the  prime 
necessities  of  human  life  were  easily  met.  Among 
those  who  went  with  this  wave  of  Western  migration 
was  the  family  of  Lincoln,  from  which  was  to  spring, 
in  years  to  come,  the  President  of  illustrious  name. 

The  Lincolns  originally  came  from  England, 
settling  in  Hingham,  Massachusetts,  about  the  year 
1638.  Thence  to  Pennsylvania  went  Mordecai  Lin- 
coln, the  great-great-grandfather  of  the  President. 
The  later  Lincolns  who  moved  westward  in  1782,  at 
the  period  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  were 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  Mordecai,  Josiah,  and  Thomas, 
his  sons.  They  went  from  Rockingham  County, 
Virginia,  to  Mercer  County,  Kentucky,  in  the  year 
before  mentioned.  At  that  time,  Kentucky  was  a 
part  of  the  great  State  of  Virginia.  It  was  almost 
an  untrodden  wilderness,  and  the  few  settlers  who 


The  Lincoln  Ancestry  3 

were  scattered  over  its  vast  area  were  brave,  hardy, 
adventurous,  and  sometimes  terrible  men.  To  the 
savages  who  roamed  the  forests  they  were  indeed  a 
terror  and  a  constant  threat.  The  Indians,  irritated 
by  the  unceasing  incoming  of  the  whites,  and  vainly 
thinking  that  they  could  stem  the  tide  that  poured 
in  upon  them,  were  always  at  war  with  the  intruders, 
and  they  omitted  no  opportunity  to  pick  them  off 
singly,  or  to  drive  them  out  by  sudden  and  deadly 
attacks  on  small  settlements. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  grandfather  of  the  President, 
entered  four  hundred  acres  of  land  on 'the  south  side 
of  Licking  Creek,  under  a  government  warrant.  He 
built  a  log  cabin  near  the  military  post  known  as 
Fort  Beargrass,  the  site  of  the  present  city  of  Louis- 
ville, Kentucky.  Here  the  family  began  to  open 
their  farm,  breaking  up  the  virgin  soil  and  planting 
their  first  crops.  In  the  second  year  of  their  Ken- 
tucky settlement,  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  son 
Thomas  being  at  work  in  the  field,  a  sneaking  Indian 
waylaid  the  twain,  and,  firing  from  the  brush,  killed 
the  father  at  his  task.  Mordecai  and  Josiah,  the 
elder  brothers,  were  chopping  in  the  forest  near  at 
hand,  and,  while  Josiah  ran  to  the  fort  for  help, 
Mordecai  dashed  into  the  cabin  and  seized  the  ever- 
ready  rifle.  Looking  through  one  of  the  port-holes  cut 
in  the  logs,  he  saw  the  Indian,  who,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  flight  of  the  boys,  had  seized  little  Tom, 
then  only  six  years  old,  and  was  making  off  with  him 
to  the  woods.  Levelling  his  rifle,  Mordecai  shot  and 
killed  the  Indian,  and,  as  he  dropped  to  the  ground, 
the  boy,  liberated  by  the  death  of  his  would-be  captor, 


4  Abraham  Lincoln 

sprang  to  his  feet  and  fled  to  the  cabin,  where  the 
future  father  of  the  President  was  clasped  in  his 
mother's  arms.  Josiah  speedily  returned  from  the 
fort  with  a  party  of  settlers,  who  took  up  the  bodies 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  slayer. 

This  scene,  as  may  be  imagined,  made  a  deep  im- 
pression on  the  minds  of  the  three  boys.  It  is  said 
that  Mordecai,  standing  over  the  form  of  his  slain 
father,  on  the  soil  to  be  known  for  generations  there- 
after as  "the  dark  and  bloody  ground,"  vowed  that 
that  precious  life  should  be  richly  paid  for  in  Indian 
blood.  Certain  it  is  that,  from  that  time  forth, 
Mordecai  Lincoln  was  the  mortal  enemy  of  the  red 
man,  and  many  an  Indian  fell  before  his  terrible  rifle. 

By  this  lamentable  death,  the  widow  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  left  alone  to  care  for  five  children — 
Mordecai,  Josiah,  Thomas,  Mary,  and  Nancy.  Of 
their  struggles  and  hardships  we  know  nothing 
positively;  but  these  can  be  imagined.  Poverty 
oppressed  the  entire  republic.  In  the  wilderness  of 
Kentucky  there  were  few  gleams  of  light :  no  schools, 
scanty  means  for  acquiring  even  the  art  of  reading 
and  writing,  and  no  apparent  need  of  the  higher 
branches  of  a  common-school  education.  In  the 
hard,  rude  life  of  the  frontier,  in  ignorance  and 
poverty,  the  father  of  the  President  grew  to  man's 
estate.  In  later  years,  his  son  Abraham,  asked  to  tell 
what  he  knew  of  his  father's  life,  said:  "My  father, 
at  the  time  of  the  death  of  his  father,  was  but  six 
years  old,  and  he  grew  up  literally  without  educa- 
tion." He  was  a  tall,  well-built,  and  muscular  man, 
quick  with  his  rifle,  an  expert  hunter,  good-natured 


The  Lincoln  Ancestry  5 

and  easy-going,  but  neither  industrious  nor  enter- 
prising. Unable  to  read  until  after  his  marriage, 
he  invariably  put  on  his  lack  of  education  all  respon- 
sibility for  his  failures  in  life ;  and  these  were  many. 
To  his  credit  it  should  be  said  that  he  resolved  that 
no  child  of  his  should  ever  be  crippled  as  he  had  been 
for  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  commonest  rudiments 
of  learning. 

While  yet  a  lad,  he  hired  himself  to  his  uncle,  Isaac 
Lincoln,  then  living  on  a  claim  that  he  had  taken  on 
Watauga  Creek,  a  branch  of  the  Holston  River. 
Manual  labor  filled  the  years  of  Tom's  young  man- 
hood. Felling  forests,  breaking  up  the  soil,  building 
the  rude  cabins  of  the  time,  and  rearing  the  crops 
needed  for  the  sustenance  of  the  hardy  settlers  and 
their  broods — these  were  the  occupations  of  those 
years.  The  woods  were  thickly  tenanted  by  bears, 
deer,  catamounts,  and  other  wild  creatures,  and  so 
far  as  hunting  was  a  diversion  from  toil,  this  amuse- 
ment was  ready  in  abundance.  But  hunting  was 
necessary  for  procuring  meat  for  the  table  and  furs 
and  skins  for  clothing  and  for  barter  with  distant 
trading-posts.  Thomas  Lincoln  was  a  laboring 
man,  working  for  others,  and  compelled  to  take  for 
wages  whatever  he  could  get  in  a  region  where  every 
man  wrought  with  his  own  hands  and  few  hired  from 
others. 

Thomas  Lincoln  was  married,  in  1806,  to  Nancy 
Hanks,  formerly  of  Virginia.  The  young  bride  was 
taken  by  her  husband  to  a  rude  log  cabin  that  he  had 
built  for  himself  near  Nolin  Creek,  in  what  is  now 
Lame  County,  Kentucky.  The  region  was  well 


6  Abraham  Lincoln 

covered  with  timber,  and,  where  cleared  and  planted, 
bore  good  harvests.  It  was  a  picturesque  and  roll- 
ing country,  and  some  of  the  hills  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  mountains.  One  of  these  is  called  Shiny  Moun- 
tain and  another  is  known  as  Blue  Ball.  Here  and 
there  were  clearings,  and  smiling  fields  were  gradu- 
ally taking  the  place  of  pathless  woods. 

In  this  cabin,  February  12,  1809,  was  born  Abra- 
ham Lincoln,  who  was  to  be  the  i6th  President  of 
the  United  States.  While  he  was  yet  an  infant,  the 
family  removed  to  another  log  cabin,  not  far  distant, 
and  in  these  two  homes  Abraham  Lincoln  spent  the 
first  seven  years  of  his  life.  One  sister,  Sarah,  was  a 
year  older  than  he;  and  one  brother,  Thomas,  two 
years  younger,  died  in  infancy.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was 
described  by  her  son  Abraham  as  of  medium  stature, 
dark,  with  soft  and  rather  mirthful  eyes.  She  was 
a  woman  of  great  force  of  character  and  passionately 
fond  of  reading.  Every  book  on  which  she  could  lay 
hands  was  eagerly  read,  and  her  son  said,  years  after- 
wards, that  his  earliest  recollection  of  his  mother  was 
of  his  sitting  at  her  feet  with  his  sister,  drinking  in 
the  tales  and  legends  that  were  read  or  related  to 
them  by  the  house-mother. 

Theirs  was  a  very  humble  and  even  poverty- 
stricken  home.  The  mother  was  used  to  the  rifle, 
and  not  only  did  she  bring  down  the  bear,  or  deer, 
and  dress  its  flesh  for  the  family  table,  but  her  skilful 
hand  wrought  garments  and  moccasins  and  head- 
gear from  the  skins.  The  most  vivid  impression  that 
we  have  of  the  mother  of  Abraham  Lincoln  is  one  of 
sadness,  toil,  and  unremitting  anxiety.  That  was  a 


The  Lincoln  Ancestry  7 

hard  life  for  a  sensitive  and  slender  woman  which 
was  led  by  the  mother  of  the  President.  The 
country  was  very  poor  in  all  that  makes  life  easy. 
The  little  family  was  far  from  any  considerable  settle- 
ment. Father  and  mother  were  alike  religious  and 
resolved  to  bring  up  their  children  in  the  fear  of  God ; 
but  places  of  worship,  schools,  and  all  the  means  of 
even  a  common  education  were  not  near  at  hand. 
Mrs.  Lincoln  taught  her  two  children  their  first 
lessons  in  the  alphabet  and  spelling.  When  Abra- 
ham was  in  his  seventh  year,  Zachariah  Riney  came 
into  the  vicinity  and  the  lad  was  sent  to  his  school. 
Riney  was  a  Catholic,  and  the  Protestant  children 
that  attended  his  humble  school  were  withdrawn 
from  the  little  log  schoolhouse  whenever  any  relig- 
ious exercises  were  held.  In  later  years,  Lincoln 
spoke  of  this  his  first  schoolmaster  with  respect  and 
esteem,  although  Riney  did  not  long  continue  to 
teach  the  future  President.  Later  on,  Caleb  Hazel, 
a  spirited  and  manly  young  fellow,  succeeded  Riney 
as  teacher,  and  Abraham  attended  his  school  three 
months.  So  rare  were  opportunities  for  going  to 
school  in  those  days,  that  Lincoln  never  forgot  the 
lessons  he  learned  of  Caleb  Hazel  and  the  pleasure 
that  he  felt  in  that  great  event  of  his  life — going  to 
school. 

In  those  primitive  times,  preaching  was  usually 
had  under  the  trees  or  in  the  cabins  of  those  few  who 
were  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  bigger  roof  than  most 
of  their  neighbors.  Lincoln  was  a  full-grown  lad 
when  he  first  saw  a  church,  and  it  was  only  from  the 
lips  of  wandering  preachers,  devoted  men  of  God, 


8  Abraham  Lincoln 

that  he  heard  the  words  of  Christian  doctrine,  re- 
proof, and  admonition.  At  long  intervals,  Parson 
Elkin,  a  Baptist  preacher,  took  his  way  through  the 
region  in  which  the  Lincolns  lived,  and  young 
Abraham,  fascinated  by  hearing  long  discourses  fall 
from  the  lips  of  the  speaker,  apparently  without  any 
previous  study  or  preparation,  never  failed  to  travel 
far,  if  necessary,  to  attend  on  his  simple  services. 
The  boy's  first  notions  of  public  speaking  were  taken 
from  the  itinerant,  and  years  afterwards  the  Presi- 
dent referred  to  the  preacher  as  the  most  wonderful 
man  known  to  his  boyish  experience. 

Thomas  Lincoln  wearied  of  his  Kentucky  home. 
There  was  great  trouble  in  getting  land  titles ;  even 
Daniel  Boone,  the  pioneer  and  surveyor  of  the  land, 
upon  whom  had  been  conferred  a  great  grant,  was 
shorn  of  much  of  his  lawful  property,  and  a  cloud 
was  laid  on  nearly  every  man's  right  to  own  his  home- 
stead. Slavery,  too,  was  asserting  itself  in  the 
region,  and,  although  a  dislike  for  the  institution  of 
slavery  did  not  unsettle  Thomas  Lincoln,  it  is  likely 
that  the  fact  that  he  was  too  poor  to  own  slaves,  and 
would  be  brought  into  direct  relations  with  men  who 
could  own  this  peculiar  kind  of  property,  helped  to 
make  him  dissatisfied  with  his  surroundings.  But 
the  real  cause  of  his  hankering  after  a  new  home  was 
probably  his  thriftlessness.  Like  many  another 
pioneer,  he  saw  something  better  far  ahead.  The 
tales  of  wonderfully  rich  soil,  abundant  game,  fine 
timber,  and  rich  pasturage  that  came  to  Kentucky 
from  Indiana  were  just  like  the  rosy  reports  of  the 
riches  and  attractions  of  Kentucky  that  had  enticed 


The  Lincoln  Ancestry  9 

the  elder  Lincolns  from  their  home  in  Virginia,  years 
before.  So  Thomas  resolved  to  "pull  up  stakes" 
and  move  on,  still  to  the  westward. 

Thomas  found  a  new-comer  who  was  willing  to 
take  his  partly-improved  farm  and  log  cabin  for  ten 
barrels  of  whiskey  and  twenty  dollars  in  cash.  This 
represented  three  hundred  dollars  in  value,  and  was 
the  price  that  he  had  set  upon  his  homestead. 
Whiskey  made  from  corn  was,  in  those  days,  one  of 
the  readiest  forms  of  currency  in  the  trading  and 
barter  continually  going  on  among  the  settlers;  and, 
even  where  drunkenness  was  almost  unknown,  the 
fiery  spirit  was  regarded  as  a  perfectly  legitimate 
article  of  daily  use  and  a  substitute  for  money  in 
trade.  Aided  by  his  boys,  Thomas  Lincoln  built 
a  flatboat,  and,  launching  it  on  the  turbid  waters 
of  the  Rolling  Fork,  which  empties  into  the  Ohio,  he 
loaded  it  with  his  ten  barrels  of  whiskey  and  the 
heavier  articles  of  household  furniture.  Then,  push- 
ing off  alone,  but  followed  by  the  hurrahs  of  his  two 
children,  he  floated  safely  down  to  the  Ohio.  Here 
he  met  with  a  great  disaster.  Caught  between 
eddying  currents,  and  entangled  in  the  snags  and 
"sawyers"  that  beset  the  stream,  Lincoln's  frail 
craft  was  upset  and  much  of  his  stuff  was  lost. 
With  assistance,  the  boat  was  righted,  and,  with  what 
had  been  saved  from  the  wreck,  Thomas  Lincoln 
landed  at  Thompson's  Ferry,  found  an  ox-cart  to 
transport  his  slender  stock  of  valuables  into  the 
forest,  and  finally  piled  them  in  an  oak-opening  in 
Spencer  County,  Indiana,  about  eighteen  miles  from 
the  river, 


io  Abraham  Lincoln 

Left  at  home,  in  their  dismantled  cabin,  with  a 
scanty  supply  of  provisions,  the  mother  and  little 
ones  made  the  most  of  their  time.  The  two  children 
attended  Caleb  Hazel's  school,  but  Abraham  found 
time  to  snare  game  for  the  family  dinner-pot,  and, 
in  an  emergency,  the  house-mother  could  knock  over 
a  deer  at  long  range.  One  bedticking,  filled  with 
dried  forest  leaves  and  husks,  sufficed  for  their  rest 
at  night,  and,  bright  and  early  in  the  morning,  the 
future  President  was  out  in  the  nipping  autumn  air, 
chopping  wood  for  the  day's  fire.  As  the  time  drew 
near  for  the  father's  return,  Mrs.  Lincoln,  leading  her 
living  boy,  paid  her  last  visit  to  the  grave  of  the  little 
one  whom  she  had  lost  in  infancy.  And  his  sad 
mother's  prayers  and  tears  by  the  side  of  the  un- 
marked mound  in  the  wilderness,  soon  to  be  left 
behind  by  the  emigrants,  made  an  impression  on  the 
mind  of  the  lad  that  time  never  effaced. 

But  when  Thomas  Lincoln  returned  to  his  small 
brood,  it  was  not  with  any  boastfulness.  He  had 
met  with  what  was  to  them  a  great  loss.  Much  of 
their  meagre  stock  of  household  stuff  and  farming 
tools  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  Ohio  River.  Leaving 
the  rescued  fragments  in  care  of  a  friendly  settler,  he 
had  made  a  bee-line  for  the  old  Kentucky  home; 
and  here  he  was  with  a  flattering  report  of  the  rich- 
ness of  the  land  to  which  they  were  bound  to  go. 

It  was  a  long  journey  that  was  before  them.  Pro- 
curing two  horses,  and  loading  them  with  the  house- 
hold stuff  and  wardrobe  of  the  family,  Thomas 
Lincoln,  wife,  and  two  children  took  up  their  line  of 
march  for  the  new  home  in  Indiana.  At  night  they 


The  Lincoln  Ancestry  n 

slept  on  the  fragrant  pine  twigs;  and  by  day  they 
plodded  their  way  toward  the  Ohio  River.  They 
were  like  true  soldiers  of  fortune,  subsisting  on  the 
country  through  which  they  marched.  Here  and 
there  it  was  needful  to  clear  their  way  through 
tangled  thickets,  and  now  and  again  they  came  to 
streams  that  must  be  forded  or  swum.  By  all  sorts 
of  expedients,  the  little  family  contrived  to  get  on 
from  day  to  day,  occupying  a  week  in  this  transit 
from  one  home  to  another.  The  nights  were  cool 
but  pleasant.  No  rain  fell  on  them  in  the  way,  and 
when,  after  a  week  of  free  and  easy  life  in  the  woods, 
they  came  to  the  bank  of  the  river  and  looked  over 
into  the  promised  land,  they  saw  nothing  but  forest, 
almost  trackless  forest,  stretching  far  up  and  down 
the  stream,  silent  save  for  its  ripplings  and  the 
occasional  note  of  some  wandering  bird. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    BOYHOOD    OF    LINCOLN. 

The  Lincoln  Home  in  Indiana — Hard  Times — The  Boy  of  the  Back- 
woods— Log  Cabin  Building — Abraham  Lincoln's  First  Letter— 
The  Funeral  in  the  Wilderness — The  Boy's  First  Book. 

INDIANA  had  been  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a 
*  State,  and  the  tide  of  immigration  setting  into  the 
new  State  was  full  and  far-spreading.  But  neigh- 
bors were  not  uncomfortably  near  the  Lincolns  in 
their  new  home.  Picking  up  their  property  left  in 
charge  of  one  of  the  scattered  settlers  by  Thomas 
Lincoln  on  his  first  visit,  the  forlorn  family  pushed 
on  into  the  wilderness,  where,  on  a  grassy  knoll  in  the 
heart  of  the  untrodden  forest,  they  fixed  upon  the 
site  of  their  future  dwelling-place. 

A  slight  hunter's  camp  was  all  that  could  be  built 
to  shelter  the  new  settlers  during  their  first  winter  in 
the  woods  of  Southern  Indiana.  This  was  what  was 
sometimes  called  a  "half -faced  camp,"  open  on  one 
side  and  that  the  lower.  Four  uprights,  forked  at  the 
top,  formed  the  corner-posts,  the  rear  being  higher 
than  the  front.  On  these  corner-poles  were  laid 
the  cross-pieces  needed  to  form  the  edges  of  the  roof, 
and  across  these  were  the  sloping  rafters,  covered 
with  split  "shakes,"  or  thin  slabs  from  the  trees 
felled  by  the  hardy  backwoodsman  and  his  boy. 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  13 

Poles  set  up  against  the  outer  framework  and 
"chinked  in"  with  chips  and  clay  made  a  shelter 
from  the  blasts  that  howled  around.  The  open  front 
was  partially  screened  with  "pelts,"  as  the  half- 
dressed  skins  of  wild  animals  were  called.  A  fire- 
place of  sticks  and  clay,  with  a  chimney  of  the  same 
materials,  occupied  one  corner  of  the  hut.  Here 
the  future  President  of  the  republic  spent  his  first 
winter  in  the  new  State  of  Indiana. 

Let  us  consider  the  lad  and  some  of  the  circum- 
stances of  the  time.  He  was  now  in  his  eighth  year, 
tall,  ungainly,  fast-growing,  long-legged,  and  clad  in 
the  garb  of  the  frontier.  Cotton  and  linen  goods 
were  scarce  and  costly  in  those  primitive  days  and  in 
that  far-off  wilderness.  Abraham  wore  a  shirt  of 
linsey-woolsey,  a  fabric  home-spun  of  mixed  cotton 
and  wool,  and  dyed,  if  at  all,  with  colors  obtained 
from  the  roots  and  barks  of  the  forest.  According 
to  his  own  statement,  he  never  wore  stockings  until 
he  was  ' '  a  young  man  grown . ' '  His  feet  were  covered 
with  rough  cowhide  shoes,  but  oftener  with  mocca- 
sins fashioned  deftly  by  his  mother's  hands.  Deer- 
skin leggings,  or  breeches,  and  a  hunting-shirt  of 
the  same  material  completed  his  outfit,  except  for 
the  coon-skin  cap  that  adorned  his  shaggy  head,  the 
tail  of  the  animal  hanging  down  behind,  at  once  an 
ornament  and  a  convenient  handle  when  occasion 
required. 

A  rifle  only  was  needed  to  finish  this  picture  of  a 
backwoodsman  in  miniature.  But  the  lad  did  not 
take  kindly  to  hunting.  He  pursued  the  wild-woods 
game  only  when  the  family  demand  for  meat  could 


14  Abraham  Lincoln 

not  be  satisfied  in  any  other  way.  Once,  as  he  used 
to  tell  of  himself,  while  yet  a  child,  he  caught  a 
glimpse  of  a  flock  of  wild  turkeys  feeding  near  the 
camp,  and,  venturously  taking  down  his  father's 
rifle  from  its  pegs  on  the  wall,  he  took  aim  through 
a  chink  in  the  cabin  and  killed  a  noble  bird.  It  was 
his  first  shot  at  a  living  thing,  and  he  never  forgot 
the  mingled  pain  and  pleasure  that  it  brought — pain 
because  he  dreaded  to  take  life,  and  pleasure  because 
he  had  brought  down  his  game. 

It  was  a  poor  time  all  over  the  land  in  those  early 
years  of  the  Lincoln  family  in  Indiana.  The  War  of 
1812  had  just  closed.  The  consequences  of  the  long 
embargo,  when  all  American  ports  were  closed  to 
commerce,  none  coming  in  and  none  going  out,  were 
still  felt  in  every  town,  city,  and  hamlet  in  the  land. 
The  manufacturing  industries  of  the  republic  were 
feeble,  and  imported  articles  were  so  dear  as  to  be  out 
of  the  reach  of  all  but  the  rich.  Thorns  were  used 
for  pins,  slices  of  cork  covered  with  cloth,  or  in- 
geniously fashioned  bits  of  bone,  did  duty  for 
buttons;  except  in  times  of  plenty,  crusts  of  rye 
bread  were  substituted  for  coffee,  and  leaves  of 
sundry  dried  herbs  took  the  place  of  Bohea  tea. 
Corn  whiskey  tempered  with  water  was  a  com- 
mon drink,  and  the  stuff  was  one  of  the  readiest 
forms  of  business  currency  in  the  country  of  the 
West. 

As  we  have  seen,  the  West  was  productive  of  the 
means  of  sustaining  life.  The  woods  swarmed  with 
bears,  deer,  woodchucks,  raccoons,  wild  turkeys,  and 
other  creatures,  furry  or  feathered,  useful  for  the 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  15 

table  or  for  furnishing  forth  the  scanty  wardrobe  of 
the  settlers.  None  need  starve,  so  long  as  snares  and 
ammunition  were  handy  for  the  hunter  and  trapper. 
But  it  was  a  hard  life,  hard  for  children,  and  hardest 
of  all  for  women.  No  neighbor  dropped  in  for  a  few 
minutes'  friendly  gossip,  with  the  small  news  of  the 
day.  No  steamboat  vexed  the  waters  of  the  Western 
rivers,  the  first  steam  craft  of  any  kind  having  been 
put  on  Lake  Erie  as  late  as  1818.  A  letter,  pro- 
vided the  rude  settler  knew  how  to  write,  took 
weeks,  even  months,  in  a  leisurely  journey  of  one 
hundred  miles.  Only  as  a  faint  echo  from  out  of 
another  world  came  the  news  of  domestic  politics, 
foreign  complications,  and  national  affairs.  James 
Madison  was  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
Congress  and  the  country  were  stirred  greatly  over 
the  admission  of  Missouri,  the  extension  of  slavery 
westward  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  other  matters 
of  great  moment  then  and  thereafter. 

It  was  in  the  autumn  of  1816  that  the  Lincolns 
took  up  their  abode  in  the  wilds  of  Indiana.  In 
February  of  the  following  year,  Thomas  Lincoln, 
with  the  slight  assistance  of  little  Abe,  felled  the  logs 
needed  for  a  substantial  cabin.  These  were  cut  to 
the  proper  lengths,  notched  near  the  ends  so  as  to  fit 
into  each  other  when  laid  up;  and  then  the  neigh- 
bors from  far  and  near  were  summoned  to  the 
"raisin',''  which  was  an  event  in  those  days  for 
much  rude  jollity  and  cordial  good-fellowship.  A 
raising  was  an  occasion  for  merry-making,  as  well  as 
for  hard  work;  and  these  opportunities  for  social 
gatherings,  few  as  they  were,  were  enjoyed  by  young 


1 6  Abraham  Lincoln 

and  old.  The  helpful  settlers  "snaked"  the  logs  out 
of  the  woods,  fitted  the  sills  in  their  places,  rolled 
the  other  logs  up  by  means  of  various  rude  con- 
trivances, and,  before  nightfall,  had  in  shape  the  four 
walls  of  the  log  cabin,  with  the  gables  fixed  in  posi- 
tion, and  poles  fastened  on  with  wooden  pins  to  serve 
as  rafters,  and  even  some  progress  was  made  in  the 
way  of  covering  the  roof. 

The  floor  of  this  primitive  habitation  was  the  solid 
ground,  pounded  hard.  The  cracks  between  the 
bark-covered  logs  were  "chinked"  with  thin  strips 
of  wood  split  from  the  plentiful  timber.  Similar 
labor  "rived"  or  split  the  "shakes"  with  which  the 
roof  was  covered  and  from  which  the  swinging  door 
was  made.  Later  on,  after  his  second  marriage, 
when  Thomas  Lincoln  felt  in  a  more  industrious 
mood,  huge  slabs  of  wood,  split  from  oak  and  hickory 
logs  and  known  as  "puncheons,"  were  laid  on  floor 
joists  of  logs  and  were  loosely  pinned  in  place  by 
long  wooden  pegs.  In  mature  life,  years  afterwards, 
when  the  pioneer  boy  had  become  the  tenant  of  the 
White  House  at  Washington,  he  could  remember 
how  he  lay  in  bed,  of  a  cold  morning,  listening  for  his 
mother's  footsteps  rattling  the  slabs  of  the  puncheon 
floor,  as  she  came  to  rouse  him  from  a  pretended 
sleep. 

Boys  who  have  never  lived  in  the  Western  wilder- 
ness can  have  no  notion  of  the  meagre  fare,  the  rude- 
ness of  the  furniture,  and  the  absence  of  those  things 
which  we  call  the  necessities  of  life,  that  character- 
ized the  humble  homes  of  the  Indiana  settlers  of  those 
distant  days.  In  one  corner  of  the  cabin,  two  of  its 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  1 7 

sides  formed  by  the  walls  thereof,  was  built  the  bed- 
stead of  the  father  and  mother.  Only  one  leg  was 
needed,  and  this  was  driven  down  into  the  ground,  a 
forked  top  giving  a  chance  to  fit  in  the  cross-pieces 
that  served  for  foot  and  side  of  this  simple  bit  of 
furniture.  From  these  to  the  logs  at  the  side  and 
head  of  the  bedstead  were  laid  split  "shakes,"  and 
sometimes  thongs  of  deerskin  were  laced  back 
and  forth  after  the  fashion  of  bedcording.  On  this 
was  placed  the  mattress,  filled  with  dried  leaves, 
corn-husks,  or  whatever  came  handy.  The  children's 
bed,  a  smaller  contrivance,  was  sometimes  fixed  in 
another  corner,  but  when  the  wintry  wind  whistled 
around  the  cabin,  and  the  dry  snow  sifted  through 
the  cracks,  the  little  ones  stole  over  to  the  parental 
bed  for  warmth. 

In  making  all  these  preparations  for  home-life 
under  their  own  roof,  little  Abe  took  an  active  part. 
He  early  learned  the  use  of  the  axe,  the  maul,  and 
the  wedge.  With  the  "froe,"  a  clumsy  iron  tool, 
something  like  a  long  wedge  with  a  wooden  handle 
fitted  into  one  end,  he  was  taught  to  "rive"  the 
shingle  from  the  slab ;  and  with  maul  and  wedges — 
a  highly-prized  possession — he  mastered  the  art  of 
splitting  rails  and  billets  of  wood  for  building  pur- 
poses from  the  logs  drawn  from  the  forest.  In 
labors  like  these  the  lad  hardened  his  sinews, 
toughened  his  hands,  and  imbibed  a  knowledge  of 
woodcraft  and  the  practical  uses  of  every  variety  of 
timber  which  he  never  lost  while  he  lived.  He 
knew  every  tree,  bush,  and  shrub,  by  its  foliage  and 
bark,  as  far  as  he  could  see  it.  The  mysterious 


1 8  Abraham  Lincoln 

juices  that  gave  healing  to  wounds  and  bruises,  the 
roots  that  held  medicinal  virtues  in  their  sap,  and 
the  uses  to  which  every  sort  of  woody  fibre  was  best 
adapted,  were  all  familiar  to  him. 

It  was  impossible  that  a  boy,  so  imaginative  and 
full  of  fancy  as  young  Abe  certainly  was,  should  grow 
up  in  these  forests  and  shades  without  imbibing  some 
queer  notions,  as  the  country  folk  said,  about  men 
and  things.  The  times  were  superstitious.  Men 
saw  all  sorts  of  signs  and  omens  in  clouds,  in  plants, 
and  in  other  objects  of  nature.  To  the  ignorant,  the 
woods  were  peopled  with  strange  and  uncanny 
creatures,  and  Indian  legends  and  stories  were  told 
of  many  a  stretch  of  trackless  forest.  Even  to  the 
ear  of  the  most  practical  of  mankind  there  is  an 
awesome  solitude  in  unexplored  forest  wilderness; 
and  the  sighing  of  the  winds,  the  roar  of  night- 
growling  animals,  the  hollow  murmur  of  distant 
streams,  and  the  indescribable  hum  that  goes  up  con- 
tinually from  the  hidden  life  of  the  forest  are  ever 
after  in  the  memory  of  those  who  have  spent  much 
of  their  childhood  in  scenes  like  these.  It  was  from 
the  trackless  forest  that  stretched  around  their  home, 
only  faintly  scarred  by  the  woodman's  axe,  that  the 
Lincoln  family  drew  their  sustenance  and  their  cloth- 
ing, even  the  simple  remedies  that  they  required  in 
time  of  sickness.  And  it  was  a  school  in  which  the 
brooding  lad  took  in  many  a  lesson,  and  which  sug- 
gested many  a  thought  that  could  not  be  expressed 
in  words.  Here  he  acquired  habits  of  reflection,  for 
it  must  be  confessed  that  he  did  not  like  work  any 
better  than  other  boys  of  his  age,  and  he  did  like  to 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  19 

spend  idle  hours  in  roaming  the  wild-woods;  and 
Lincoln  never  to  the  latest  day  of  his  life  forgot 
the  traditions  and  the  scenery  of  the  wilderness 
in  which  his  childhood  was  spent,  never  lost  the  les- 
son of  God's  greatness  and  man's  insignificance 
that  the  boundless  forest,  with  its  occasional  glimpses 
of  blue  above  and  far-reaching  vistas  ahead,  taught 
him. 

It  was  during  their  first  year  in  Indiana,  and  when 
Abraham  was  in  his  tenth  year,  that  the  children 
suffered  their  first  great  sorrow  and  loss.  Hard  work, 
exposure,  and  continual  anxiety  had  told  on  the  good 
mother,  and  when,  during  the  summer  of  1818,  a 
mysterious  disease  called  "the  milk-sick"  appeared 
in  the  region,  the  overworked  woman  was  stricken 
down  with  it.  Exactly  what  "the  milk-sick"  was, 
nobody  nowadays  seems  to  know.  No  physician 
acknowledges  any  such  form  of  sickness;  but  there 
are  traditions  of  it  yet  extant  in  the  Western  States, 
and  Mr.  Lincoln,  later  in  life,  described  it  as  resem- 
bling a  quick  consumption.  Cattle  as  well  as  human 
beings  were  destroyed  by  it,  and  in  the  far-off  wilder- 
ness it  was  not  then  uncommon  to  find  an  entire 
household  prostrated  with  the  disease,  while  flocks 
and  herds  were  dying  uncared  for.  It  was  a  sad  and 
gloomy  time  all  through  southern  Indiana  and 
Kentucky  when  "the  milk-sick"  raged. 

Nancy  Lincoln,  smitten  with  the  disorder,  was 
nursed  and  tended  by  her  husband  and  children. 
No  doctor  ever  came  into  that  distant  wilderness, 
and  no  help  could  be  procured  from  any  source.  In 
the  preceding  autumn,  Mrs.  Betsy  Sparrow  and  her 


20  Abraham  Lincoln 

husband  and  her  little  nephew,  Dennis  Hanks,  had 
followed  the  Lincolns  into  Indiana  and  were  settled 
not  far  away  in  the  half -faced  camp.  Dennis  Hanks 
was  Abraham's  playmate  and  distant  cousin,  for  Mrs. 
Sparrow  was  Nancy  Lincoln's  aunt.  The  Sparrows, 
man  and  wife,  were  taken  down  with  "the  milk- 
sick"  and  were  removed  to  the  Lincoln  cabin,  with 
little  Dennis  Hanks,  for  better  attendance.  With 
plague-stricken  Thomas  and  Betsy  Sparrow  and 
Mrs.  Lincoln,  the  cares  of  housekeeping  and  nursing, 
and  the  duty  of  providing  for  this  feeble  household, 
poor  Thomas  Lincoln,  unthrifty  that  he  was,  had  his 
hands  full.  The  children  were  all  small,  and  thus 
early  in  life  did  Abraham  find  how  hard  was  the  lot 
of  the  poor. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sparrow  first  died,  and  were  buried 
on  a  little  knoll  in  the  forest  within  seeing  distance  of 
the  cabin.  On  the  5th  of  October,  a  few  days  later, 
Nancy  Lincoln  died;  and  she  too  was  buried  in  the 
forest,  under  the  shade  of  a  spreading  and  majestic 
sycamore.  There  were  no  funeral  ceremonies,  for 
there  was  no  man  of  God  to  conduct  them.  And 
when  the  wayworn  form  of  the  mother  was  lowered 
into  the  grave,  enclosed  in  the  rude  casket  of  wood 
shaped  by  the  hands  of  Thomas  Lincoln,  and  all  was 
over,  little  Abraham  Lincoln,  sitting  alone  on  the 
mound  of  fresh  earth  until  the  shadows  grew  deep  and 
dark  in  the  forest,  and  the  sound  of  night-birds 
began  to  echo  through  the  dim  aisles,  wept  his  first 
bitter  tears.  Doubtless,  he  thought  of  all  that  his 
mother,  the  faithful  teacher  and  devoted  Christian 
guide  and  friend,  had  been  to  him.  Long  after, 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  21 

when  the  spot  where  she  was  buried 1  had  been 
covered  by  the  wreck  of  the  forest  and  almost  hidden, 
her  son  was  wont  to  say,  with  tear-dimmed  eyes, 
"All  that  I  am,  or  hope  to  be,  I  owe  to  my  angel 
mother." 

It  was  the  custom  of  those  days,  and  of  that 
country,  to  have  a  funeral  sermon  preached  by  way 
of  memorial,  any  time  within  the  year  following  the 
death  of  a  person.  So,  as  soon  as  the  good  mother 
was  buried,  Abraham  Lincoln  composed  what  he  used 
to  say  was  his  first  letter,  and  addressed  it  to  Parson 
Elkin,  the  Kentucky  Baptist  preacher  who  had  some- 
times tarried  with  the  Lincolns  in  their  humble 
home  in  Kentucky.  It  was  a  great  favor  to  ask  of 
the  good  man;  for  his  journey  to  preach  a  sermon 
over  the  grave  of  Nancy  Lincoln  would  take  him  one 
hundred  miles  or  more,  far  from  his  customary 
"stamping-ground."  But,  in  due  time,  Abraham 
received  an  answer  to  his  letter,  and  the  parson 
promised  to  come  when  his  calls  of  duty  led  him 
near  the  Indiana  line. 

Early  in  the  following  summer,  when  the  trees 
were  in  the  greenest  and  the  forest  was  most  beauti- 
ful, the  preacher  came  on  his  errand  of  kindness. 
It  was  a  bright  and  sunny  Sabbath  morning,  when, 
due  notice  having  been  sent  around  through  all  the 
region,  men,  women,  and  children  gathered  from  far 
and  near  to  hear  the  funeral  sermon  of  Nancy 
Lincoln.  There  was  the  hardy  forest  ranger,  come  in 

i  A  stone  has  been  placed  over  the  site  of  the  grave  by  Mr.  P.  E. 
Studebacker  of  South  Bend,  Indiana.  The  stone  bears  the  following 
inscription:  "Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln,  died  October  5th,  A.D.  1818, 
aged  35  years.  Erected  by  a  friend  of  her  martyred  son,  1879." 


22  Abraham  Lincoln 

from  his  far-wandering  quests  to  hear.  There  were 
the  farmers  and  their  families,  borne  hither  in  rude 
and  home-made  carts,  new-comers  some  of  .them, 
and  homesick  for  their  distant  birthplaces — two 
hundred  of  them,  all  told,  some  on  foot,  and  some  on 
horseback,  and  others  drawn  in  ox-carts.  All  were 
intent  on  the  great  event  of  the  season — the  preach- 
ing of  Nancy  Lincoln's  funeral  sermon. 

The  waiting  congregation  was  grouped  around  on 
"downtrees,"  stumps,  and  knots  of  bunch-grass,  or 
on  wagon-tongues,  waiting  for  the  coming  of  the 
little  procession.  The  preacher  led  the  way  from 
the  Lincoln  cabin,  followed  by  Thomas  Lincoln,  his 
son  Abraham,  his  daughter  Sarah,  and  little  Dennis 
Hanks,  bereft  now  of  father  and  mother  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Lincoln  household.  Tears  shone  on  the 
sun-browned  cheeks  of  the  silent  settlers  as  the  good 
preacher  told  of  the  virtues  and  the  patiently  borne 
sufferings  and  sorrows  of  the  departed  mother  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  And  every  head  was  bowed  in 
reverential  solemnity  as  he  lifted  up  his  voice  in 
prayer  for  the  motherless  children  and  the  widowed 
man.  To  Abraham,  listening  as  he  did  to  the  last 
words  that  should  be  said  over  the  grave  of  his 
mother,  this  was  a  very  memorable  occasion.  He 
had  fulfilled  a  pious  duty  in  bringing  the  preacher  to 
the  place  where  she  was  laid.  And  as  the  words, 
wonderful  to  him,  dropped  from  the  speaker's  lips, 
he  felt  that  this  was  the  end,  at  last,  of  a  lovely  and 
gentle  life.  He  might  be  drawn  into  busy  and  trying 
scenes  hereafter,  and  he  might  have  many  and 
mighty  cares  laid  on  him,  but  that  scene  in  the  forest 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  23 

by  the  lonely  grave  of  his  mother  was  never  to  be 
forgotten. 

It  was  a  miserable  household  that  was  left  for  the 
three  youngsters  when  shiftless  Thomas  Lincoln  was 
the  only  reliance  of  the  little  brood.  We  can  im- 
agine how  unkempt  and  ragged  the  three  became, 
left  almost  wholly  to  themselves.  Sarah,  scarcely 
twelve  years  old,  was  the  housekeeper.  Abe,  two 
years  younger,  came  next,  and  Dennis  Hanks,  eighteen 
months  younger  than  young  Lincoln,  was  the  infant 
of  the  family.  Thomas  Lincoln  did  not  brood  long 
over  his  loneliness.  His  was  a  cheerful  temper,  and 
he  hoped  that  the  good  Lord  would  send  them  help, 
somehow  and  some  day;  but  how  and  when,  he  never 
stopped  to  think.  Deer-flesh  and  the  birds  of  the 
forest,  broiled  on  the  coals,  were  the  staple  of  their 
daily  food.  The  father  knew  better  than  Sarah  did 
how  to  mix  an  ash-cake  of  corn-meal,  and  with  milk 
from  the  cow,  and  an  occasional  slab  of  "side-meat," 
or  smoked  side  of  pork,  the  family  was  never  long 
hungry.  It  was  primitive  and  hard  fare.  But  a 
boy  might  nourish  himself  on  that  and  live  to  be 
President. 

Little  Abraham  had  what  was  more  to  him  than 
meat  and  drink — books.  Boys  of  the  present  age, 
turning  over  languidly  the  piles  of  books  at  their 
command,  beautiful,  entertaining,  instructive,  and 
fascinating,  gay  with  binding  and  pictures,  would 
stand  aghast  at  the  slimness  of  the  stock  that  made 
Abraham  Lincoln's  heart  glad.  The  first  books  he 
read  were  the  Bible,  JEsop's  Fables,  and  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress.  On  these  three  books  was  formed  the 


24  Abraham  Lincoln 

literary  taste  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  He  might  have 
fared  worse.  He  thought  himself  the  most  fortunate 
boy  in  the  country,  and  so  good  use  did  he  make  of 
these  standard  works  that  he  could  repeat  from 
memory  whole  chapters  of  the  Bible,  many  of  the 
most  striking  passages  of  Bunyan's  immortal  book, 
and  every  one  of  the  fables  of  ^Esop. 

He  early  took  to  the  study  of  the  lives  and  char- 
acters of  eminent  men,  and  a  life  of  Henry  Clay, 
which  his  mother  had  managed  to  buy  for  him,  was 
one  of  his  choicest  treasures.  From  the  day  of  his 
first  reading  the  biography  of  the  great  Kentuckian, 
Lincoln  dated  his  undying  admiration  for  Henry 
Clay.  Ramsay's  Life  of  Washington  was  another 
book  early  found  among  the  settlers  and  devoured 
with  a  book-hunger  most  pathetic.  Hearing  of  an- 
other life  of  Washington,  written  by  Weems,  young 
Lincoln  went  in  pursuit  of  it  and  joyfully  carried  it 
home  in  the  bosom  of  his  hunting  shirt.  Reading 
this  by  the  light  of  a  "tallow-dip,"  or  home-made 
candle,  until  the  feeble  thing  had  burned  down  to  its 
end,  Abraham  tucked  the  precious  volume  into  a 
chink  in  the  log  wall  of  the  cabin  and  went  to  sleep. 
A  driving  storm  came  up  in  the  night,  and  the  book 
was  soaked  through  and  ruined  when  the  eager  boy 
sought  for  it  in  the  early  morning  light.  Here  was  a 
great  misfortune!  It  was  a  borrowed  book,  and 
honest  Abe  was  in  despair  over  its  destruction  in  his 
hands.  With  a  heavy  heart,  he  took  it  back  to  its 
owner.  Mr.  Crawford,  who  had  lent  it,  looked  at 
Abraham  with  an  assumed  severity,  and  asked  him 
what  he  proposed  to  do  about  it.  The  lad  offered 


The  Boyhood  of  Lincoln  25 

to  do  anything  that  Mr.  Crawford  thought  fair  and 
just.  A  settlement  was  made,  young  Abe  covenant- 
ing to  pull  "fodder,"  or  corn-stalks,  for  three  days, 
by  way  of  settlement. 

"And  does  that  pay  for  the  book,  or  for  the  dam- 
age done  to  it?"  asked  the  shrewd  boy,  taking  his 
first  lessons  in  worldly  wisdom. 

"Wai,  I  allow,"  said  the  kindly  owner  of  the 
precious  book,  "that  it  won't  be  much  account  to  me 
or  anybody  else  now,  and  the  bargain  is  that  you 
pull  fodder  three  days,  and  the  book  is  yours." 

This  was  the  first  book  that  Abraham  Lincoln 
ever  earned  and  paid  for,  and,  discolored  and  blis- 
tered though  it  was,  it  was  to  him  of  value  incalcu- 
lable. He  laid  to  heart  the  lessons  of  the  life  of 
Washington,  and,  years  after,  standing  near  the 
battle-ground  of  Trenton,  and  recalling  the  pages  of 
the  book  hidden  in  the  crevices  of  the  log  cabin  in 
the  Indiana  wilderness,  he  said :  "I  remember  all  the 
accounts  there  given  of  the  battlefields  and  the 
struggles  for  the  liberties  of  the  country,  and  none 
fixed  themselves  so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at 
Trenton,  New  Jersey.  I  recollect  thinking  then, 
boy  even  though  I  was,  that  there  must  have  been 
something  more  than  common  that  those  men 
struggled  for." 

The  boy  had  begun  to  think  for  himself  when  he 
was  searching  for  an  explanation  of  the  fervor  and 
determination  with  which  the  fathers  of  the  republic 
endured  hardship  and  manfully  plunged  into  the 
desperate  struggle. 

And  wheresoever  the  story  of  Abraham  Lincoln's 


26  Abraham  Lincoln 

life  shall  be  told,  this  account  of  his  first  precious 
possession  shall  be  also  narrated  for  a  memorial  of 
him. 

It  is  an  odd  fact,  that  may  as  well  be  recorded  here, 
that  Lincoln,  as  boy  and  man,  almost  invariably 
read  aloud.  When  he  studied  it  helped  him,  he 
said,  to  fix  in  his  mind  the  matter  in  hand,  if,  while 
it  passed  before  his  eyes,  he  heard  his  own  voice  re- 
peating what  it  so  much  desired  to  learn. 


CHAPTER  III. 

YOUNG  MANHOOD. 

Thomas  Lincoln's  Second  Marriage — Improvements  in  the  Backwoods 
Home — More  Books  for  the  Boy — His  Horizon  Enlarges — He 
Learns  to  be  Thorough — Down  the  Mississippi — A  Glimpse  of 
Slavery — Coming  out  of  the  Wilderness.  • 

JN  the  autumn  of  1819,  Thomas  Lincoln  went  off 
somewhere  into  Kentucky,  leaving  the  children 
to  take  care  of  themselves.  What  he  went  for,  and 
where  he  went,  the  youngsters  never  thought  of  ask- 
ing. But  in  December,  early  one  morning,  they 
heard  a  loud  halloo  from  the  edge  of  the  forest ;  and, 
dashing  to  the  door,  they  beheld  the  amazing  sight 
of  the  returning  traveller  perched  in  a  four-horse 
wagon,  a  pretty-looking  woman  by  his  side,  and  a 
stranger  driving  the  spanking  team.  Was  it  a 
miracle?  We  might  think  so  if  we  knew  Thomas 
Lincoln  as  well  as  his  son  did  afterwards ;  for  Thomas 
had  returned  with  a  step-mother  for  his  little  ones. 
He  had  married,  in  Elizabethtown,  Kentucky,  Mrs. 
Sally  Johnston,  formerly  Miss  Sally  Bush.  It  is  be- 
lieved that  to  Miss  Sally  Thomas  Lincoln  had  paid 
court  before  he  married  her  who  was  the  mother  of 
Abraham  Lincoln.  She  had  been  known  to  the  lad, 
years  ago,  in  Kentucky;  and  now  that  she  had 
come  to  be  the  new  mother  to  Abe  and  his  sister, 
they  were  glad  to  see  her. 


28  Abraham  Lincoln 

The  gallant  four-horse  team  was  the  property  of 
Ralph  Krume,  who  had  married  Sally  Johnston's 
sister ;  and  in  the  wagon  was  stored  what  seemed  to 
these  children  of  the  wilderness  a  gorgeous  array  of 
housekeeping  things.  There  were  tables  and  chairs, 
a  bureau  with  real  drawers  that  pulled  out  and  dis- 
closed a  stock  of  clothing,  crockery  to  replace  the 
rude  tins  that  were  used  in  the  Lincoln  homestead, 
bedding,  knives  and  forks,  and  numerous  things  that 
to  people  nowadays  are  thought  to  be  among  the 
necessaries  of  life,  but  which  Nancy  Lincoln  had  been 
compelled  to  do  without.  By  what  magic  Thomas 
Lincoln  had  persuaded  this  thrifty  and  ' '  forehanded ' ' 
widow  to  leave  her  home  in  Kentucky,  and  migrate 
to  the  comfortless  wilderness  of  Indiana,  we  can 
only  guess.  But  Thomas  was  of  a  genial  and  even 
jovial  disposition,  and  he  had  allured  the  good 
woman  to  come  and  save  his  motherless  bairns  from 
utter  destitution  and  neglect. 

The  new  Mrs.  Lincoln,  if  she  was  disappointed  in 
the  home  she  found  in  Indiana,  never  showed  her 
disappointment  to  her  step-children.  She  took  hold 
of  the  duties  and  labors  of  the  day  with  a  cheerful 
readiness  that  was  long  and  gratefully  remembered 
by  her  step-son,  at  least.  They  were  good  friends  at 
once.  Of  him  she  said,  years  after:  "He  never  gave 
me  a  cross  word  or  look,  and  never  refused,  in  fact 
or  appearance,  to  do  anything  I  requested  of  him." 
Of  her  he  said:  "She  was  a  noble  woman,  affection- 
ate, good,  and  kind,  rather  above  the  average 
woman,  as  I  remember  women  in  those  days."  Mrs. 
Lincoln  brought  with  her  three  children  by  her  first 


29 

marriage,  John,  Sarah,  and  Matilda  Johnston,  whose 
ages  were  not  far  from  those  of  the  three  children 
found  in  the  Lincoln  homestead.  The  log  cabin  was 
full  to  overflowing.  The  three  boys,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, John  Johnston,  and  Dennis  Hanks,  were  sent 
to  the  loft  over  the  cabin  to  sleep.  They  climbed 
up  a  rude  ladder  built  against  the  inner  side  of  the 
log  house ;  and  their  bed,  a  mere  sack  of  dry  corn- 
husks,  was  so  narrow  that  when  one  turned  over  all 
three  turned.  Nevertheless,  there  was  an  abundance 
of  covering  for  the  children,  all.  The  new  mother 
had  at  once  insisted  that  the  openings  in  the  cabin 
should  be  filled  with  glass  and  sashes  instead  of 
loosely  hung  sheets  of  muslin.  The  rickety  frame 
covered  with  split  shakes,  that  had  served  as  a  door, 
with  its  clumsy  wooden  hasp,  was  taken  away,  and 
"a  battened  door  "  of  matched  boards,  with  a  wooden 
latch  of  domestic  make,  replaced  it.  Mats  of  deer- 
skin were  put  down  on  the  puncheon  floor,  and  an 
aspect  of  comfort,  even  luxury,  was  spread  around. 
It  seems  to  have  been  an  harmonious  household.  If 
there  were  any  family  jars,  history  makes  no  men- 
tion of  them.  And  we  must  remember  that  that 
history  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  reports  of  two  of 
those  who  were  most  interested  in  the  household — 
Abraham  Lincoln  and  his  step-mother. 

About  this  time  young  Abe  made  the  acquaintance 
of  a  new  source  of  pleasure,  James  Fenimore  Cooper's 
Leather-Stocking  Tales,  then  novelties  in  the  litera- 
ture of  the  United  States.  Over  these  he  hung  with 
rapturous  delight.  He  had  seen  something  of  the 
fast-receding  Indian  of  the  American  forests;  and 


30  Abraham  Lincoln 

he  had  heard,  many  a  time,  of  his  father's  thrilling 
escape  from  the  red  man's  clutches,  and  of  his  grand- 
father's cruel  death  in  the  Kentucky  ''clearing"; 
and  when  he  withdrew  his  fascinated  attention  from 
the  vivid  pages  of  Cooper's  novel,  he  almost  expected 
to  see  the  painted  savages  lurking  in  the  outskirts  of 
the  forest  so  near  at  hand.  Another  book,  borrowed 
from  one  of  the  few  and  distant  neighbors,  was 
Burns' 's  Poems,  a  thick  and  chunky  volume,  as  he 
afterwards  described  it,  bound  in  leather  and  printed 
in  very  small  type.  This  book  he  kept  long  enough 
to  commit  to  memory  almost  all  its  contents.  And 
ever  after,  to  the  day  of  his  death,  some  of  the 
familiar  lines  of  the  Scottish  poet  were  as  ready 
on  his  lips  as  those  of  Shakespeare,  the  only  poet 
who  was,  in  Lincoln's  opinion,  greater  than  Robert 
Burns. 

His  step-mother  said  of  him:  "He  read  every- 
thing he  could  lay  his  hands  on,  and  when  he  came 
across  a  passage  that  struck  him,  he  would  write  it 
down  on  boards,  if  he  had  no  paper,  and  keep  it  by 
him  until  he  could  get  paper.  Then  he  would  copy 
it,  look  at  it,  commit  it  to  memory,  and  repeat  it." 
In  this  way  he  collected  a  great  many  things  from 
books  that  he  did  not  own  and  could  not  keep.  We 
have  heard  of  writers  and  scholars  who  make  a  com- 
monplace book  in  which  may  be  recorded  things 
noteworthy  and  memorable.  Abraham  Lincoln,  at 
the  age  of  ten,  kept  such  a  book.  It  was  first 
written  on  wooden  "shakes"  with  charcoal.  Trans- 
ferred to  paper  with  pen  and  ink,  and  repeated  often, 
the  noble  thoughts  and  melodious  lines  of  famous 


Young  Manhood  31 

men  had  already  become  a  part  of  the  education  of 
the  President  that  was  to  be. 

But  although  young  Lincoln  devoured  books  with 
a  hunger  that  was  almost  pathetic,  and  sorely  tried 
his  eyes  with  study  by  the  light  of  blazing  pine- 
knots  on  the  hearth,  he  was  no  milksop,  no  weakly 
bookworm.  In  the  athletic  sports  of  the  time,  and 
in  the  manual  dexterity  so  helpful  in  those  frontier 
pursuits,  he  was  the  master  of  every  other  boy  of  his 
age.  He  had  learned  the  use  of  tools,  could  swing 
the  maul  and  chip  out  "shakes"  and  shingles,  lay 
open  rails  and  handle  logs  as  well  as  most  men. 
Although  not  a  quarrelsome  boy,  he  could  "throw" 
any  of  his  weight  and  years  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  far  and  near  "Abe  Lincoln"  was  early  known 
as  a  capital  wrestler  and  a  tough  champion  at  every 
game  of  muscular  skill. 

School  and  its  coveted  facilities  for  getting  know- 
ledge was  now  within  reach.  Hazel  Dorsey  was  the 
name  of  a  new  schoolmaster  on  Little  Pigeon  Creek, 
a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  Lincoln  homestead ;  and 
thither  was  sent  the  brood  of  young  ones  belong- 
ing to  the  Lincoln  family.  These  backwoods  child- 
ren had  the  unusual  luxury  of  going  all  together  to 
a  genuine  school.  True  the  schoolhouse  was  built 
of  logs;  but  all  the  youngsters  of  the  school  came 
from  log  cabins;  and  even  the  new  meeting-house, 
which  was  an  imposing  affair  for  those  woods,  was 
log-built  up  to  the  gables,  and  thence  finished  out 
with  the  first  sawn  lumber  ever  used  to  any  con- 
siderable extent  in  the  region. 

Young  Abraham  made  the  most  of  his  opportu- 


32  Abraham  Lincoln 

nities,  and,  when  he  found  the  days  too  short  for  his 
school  studies  and  his  tasks  about  the  farm,  he  sat 
up  by  the  fire  of  "lightwood"  late  into  the  night. 
What  dreams  had  come  to  him  in  those  far-off  days  ? 
Did  he  begin  to  think  that  he  might  "be  somebody" 
in  the  great  and  busy  world  of  which  he  had  heard 
faint  echoes  ?  It  would  seem  likely.  Following  the 
plow,  or  whirling  the  mighty  maul,  as  he  wrought  at 
splitting  rails,  he  pondered  deeply  the  lessons  that 
he  had  learned  at  school  and  from  the  few  books  at 
his  command.  When  he  was  a  grown  man,  it  fell 
to  his  lot  to  pronounce  a  eulogy  on  Henry  Clay, 
whom  he  had  learned  to  idolize  in  his  youth;  and 
the  growing  young  statesman  said  of  Clay,  among 
other  things:  "His  example  teaches  us  that  one  can 
scarcely  be  so  poor  but  that,  if  he  will,  he  can  acquire 
sufficient  education  to  get  through  the  world  re- 
spectably." If  the  example  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
the  admirer  and  eulogist  of  Henry  Clay,  teaches  any- 
thing to  the  boys  of  this  generation,  it  teaches  just 
what  he  said  of  Henry  Clay's  life.  As  his  mental 
vision  widened,  there  was  nothing  too  abstruse  for 
Lincoln  to  grapple  with,  nothing  so  far  out  of  the 
knowledge  of  those  about  him  that  he  could  not  take 
it  up.  Algebra,  Euclid,  Latin,  came  later  on  in  life; 
but  even  in  his  early  youth,  hearing  of  these,  he  re- 
solved to  master  them  as  soon  as  he  could  get  the 
needed  books. 

Through  all  the  wide  neighborhood,  Abe  Lincoln 
was  known  as  an  honest,  laborious,  and  helpful  lad. 
Coming  home  one  night,  when  the  early  winter  frosts 
were  sharp  and  nipping,  he  and  a  comrade  found  by 


33 

the  roadside  the  horse  of  one  of  the  settlers  who  was 
a  notorious  drunkard.-  There  had  been  a  house- 
raising  in  the  vicinity,  and  the  rider,  overcome  with 
the  strong  drink  too  common  on  those  semi-festive 
occasions,  had  probably  fallen  off  and  been  left  by 
his  steed,  while  passing  through  the  woods.  Young 
Lincoln  was  for  hunting  up  the  missing  man.  "Oh, 
come  along  home,"  said  his  companion;  "what 
business  is  it  of  yours  if  he  does  get  lost?" 

"But  he  will  freeze  to  death,  if  he  is  left  on  the 
trail  this  cold  night." 

The  kind-hearted  young  fellow,  hater  though  he 
was  of  the  stuff  that  had  laid  low  his  neighbor,  was 
too  compassionate  to  leave  its  victim  to  freeze.  He 
found  the  man,  took  him,  all  unconscious  as  he  was, 
on  his  own  stalwart  back,  and  actually  carried  him 
eighty  rods  to  the  nearest  house,  where,  after  sending 
word  to  his  father  that  he  must  stay  out  all  night,  he 
sat  by  the  half -frozen  man  and  brought  him  back  to 
consciousness  and  restored  faculties.  He  saved  the 
life  of  the  sinner  while  he  hated  the  sin. 

Before  he  was  seventeen  years  old,  he  attended 
court  in  Boonville,  the  county-seat  of  Warrick, 
where  a  man  was  on  trial  for  murder.  It  was  his 
first  look  into  what  seemed  to  him  the  great  world 
outside  the  wilderness.  An  accident  led  him  into 
the  vicinity,  and,  hearing  that  one  of  the  famous 
Breckinridges  of  Kentucky  was  to  speak  for  the  de- 
fence, he  went  on  to  Boonville,  and,  open-mouthed 
with  wonder,  heard  the  first  great  speech  of  his  life. 
He  could  not  restrain  his  admiration,  and  when  the 
arguments  were  over  and  the  case  had  gone  to  the 


34  Abraham  Lincoln 

jury,  and  the  eminent  lawyer,  flushed  with  conscious 
pride,  was  passing  out  of  the  courthouse,  he  was  in- 
tercepted by  a  tall,  overgrown  youth,  exceedingly 
awkward,  horny-handed  and  evidently  of  the  "poor 
white"  class.  The  youth,  his  face  shining  with 
honest  enthusiasm,  held  out  his  brown  hand  to  the 
well-dressed  lawyer,  and  told  him  how  much  he  had 
enjoyed  his  wonderful  speech.  The  aristocratic 
Breckinridge  stared  with  surprise  at  the  intrusive 
stranger,  and  haughtily  brushed  by  the  future 
President  of  the  United  States.  This  was  not  the 
boy's  first  lesson  in  social  distinctions,  but  it  was  his 
first  lesson  in  oratory;  and  he  was  just  as  grateful  to 
Breckinridge  as  he  would  have  been  if  the  great  man 
had  been  as  gracious  then  as  he  was  years  after, 
when  he  was  reminded  by  the  President,  in  Wash- 
ington, of  an  incident  in  Boonville  which  the  Breck- 
inridge had  forgotten  and  the  Lincoln  could  notf orget. 
From  that  time,  young  Lincoln  practised  speech- 
making.  He  took  up  any  topic  that  happened  to 
be  uppermost  in  the  rural  neighborhood — a  question 
of  roads,  or  trails,  the  school-tax,  a  bounty  on  wolves 
or  bears  offered  by  the  Legislature,  or  any  kindred 
question  of  the  day;  or  he  got  up  mock  trials,  ar- 
raigned imaginary  culprits,  and,  himself,  acted  as 
prosecuting  attorney,  counsel  for  the  defendant, 
judge,  and  foreman  of  the  jury,  making  their  appro- 
priate addresses  in  due  course.  He  threw  himself 
into  these  debates  with  so  much  ardor  that  his  father 
was  obliged  to  interfere  and  forbid  the  speeches  dur- 
ing hours  for  work.  The  old  man  grumbled : ' '  When 
Abe  begins  to  speak,  all  hands  nock  to  hear  him." 


Manhood  35 

One  notable  thing  about  this  young  man  was  that 
when  he  began  to  study  anything  he  was  not  satis- 
fied until  he  got  to  the  bottom  of  it.  He  went  to 
the  roots  of  things.  He  wrote  and  rewrote  all  that 
he  wanted  to  commit  to  memory.  He  could  not  give 
up  any  difficult  problem.  He  kept  at  it  until  he  had 
mastered  it;  and  in  a  community  that  was  pretty 
dark  in  all  matters  of  book-learning  he  seldom  had 
any  help  outside  of  his  book.  He  found  time,  now 
and  again,  of  an  evening,  to  lounge  with  the  other 
young  fellows  in  the  country  store  at  the  crossroads, 
and,  beardless  youngster  though  he  was,  he  delighted 
the  rude  backwoodsmen  and  settlers  with  his  homely 
wit  and  wisdom.  He  was  accounted  as  being  deeply 
learned,  too,  in  that  benighted  region.  Great  things 
were  prophesied  of  the  lad. 

Never  neglecting  any  task  on  the  farm,  never 
shirking  any  duty  however  unwelcome,  young  Lin- 
coln studied  almost  incessantly.  One  of  the  com- 
panions of  his  boyhood,  Dennis  Hanks,  said  of  him : 
"He  was  always  reading,  writing,  ciphering,  and 
writing  poetry."  In  a  wonderfully  strange  school 
God  was  training  the  President  that  should  be. 

There  is  in  existence  a  manuscript  book  of  Lin- 
coln's, begun  when  he  was  seventeen  years  old,  and 
containing  various  mathematical  problems  under 
the  title  of  "  Book  of  Examples  in  Arithmetic."  One 
of  these,  dated  March  i,  1826,  is  headed  "Discount," 
and  is  divided  as  follows :  "A  Definition  of  Discount," 
"Rules  for  its  Computation,"  and  "Proofs  and 
Various  Examples,"  all  worked  out  in  neat  and  cor- 
rect figures.  Following  this  is  "Interest  on  Money." 


36  Abraham  Lincoln 

And  all  this  was  carefully  kept  for  ready  reference 
by  the  boy  who  was  busily  studying  how  to  be  master 
of  everything  he  attempted  to  learn.  When  he  was 
President,  somebody  came  to  him  with  a  story  about 
a  plot  to  accomplish  some  mischief  in  the  govern- 
ment. Lincoln  listened  to  what  was  a  very  super- 
ficial and  ill-informed  story,  and  then  said:  "There 
is  one  thing  that  I  have  learned  and  you  have  n't. 
It  is  only  one  word — 'thorough."  Then  bringing 
his  hand  down  on  the  table  with  a  thump  to  em- 
phasize his  meaning,  he  added,  "Thorough!" 

We  know  now  where  Abraham  Lincoln  learned  to 
be  thorough.  It  was  when  he  was  building  his 
character. 

It  was  about  this  time,  when  he  was  eighteen  years 
old,  that  he  conceived  the  mighty  plan  of  building  a 
boat  and  taking  down  the  river  some  of  the  products 
of  the  home  farm.  He  had  had  furtive  glimpses  of 
the  busy  life  outside  the  woods  of  southern  Indiana, 
and  he  longed  for  a  closer  look  at  it.  The  little  craft 
was  built,  chiefly  by  his  own  hands,  and,  loaded  with 
bacon,  "garden  truck,"  and  such  odds  and  ends  as 
were  thought  available  for  market,  was  paddled 
down  stream  to  the  nearest  trading-post.  We  have 
no  record  of  the  result  of  the  voyage,  except  that  it 
was  on  this  momentous  occasion  that  young  Lincoln 
felt  the  greed  of  money  waked  within  him.  Never 
avaricious,  never  stingy,  Lincoln  was  so  trained  to 
habits  of  frugality  that  he  always,  to  use  a  common 
expression,  "looked  twice  at  a  dollar  before  parting 
with  it."  Loitering  on  the  river  bank,  after  he  had 
sold  his  little  cargo,  he  saw  what  was  to  him  then  an 


Young  Manhood  37 

unusual  sight,  a  steamer  coming  down  the  river. 
Two  men  came  to  the  river's  edge  seeking  a  boat  to 
take  them  to  the  approaching  steamboat.  In  all 
the  throng  of  small  craft,  they  singled  out  Lincoln's. 
Without  waiting  to  strike  a  bargain,  he  sculled  the 
two  passengers  and  their  trunks  out  to  the  boat,  and 
when  he  had  put  them  on  board  with  their  luggage, 
what  was  his  astonishment  to  find  in  his  hand,  as  his 
fee,  two  silver  half-dollars! 

"I  could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes,"  he  said,  when 
telling  this  adventure,  years  afterward,  to  Secretary 
Seward.  "You  may  think  it  a  very  little  thing; 
but  it  was  the  most  important  incident  in  my  life. 
I  could  scarcely  believe  that  I,  a  poor  boy,  had 
earned  a  dollar  in  less  than  a  day.  The  world  seemed 
wider  and  fairer  before  me.  I  was  a  more  hopeful 
and  confident  being  from  that  time." 

The  boy  was  waking  to  the  possibilities  of  man- 
hood. The  two  shining  silver  coins,  honestly  earned, 
lying  in  his  palm,  were  tokens  of  what  might  come 
hereafter  to  well-directed  labor. 

It  was  one  year  later,  when  Lincoln  was  nineteen 
years  old,  that  he  made  his  second  voyage.  This 
was  a  great  event  in  the  young  backwoodsman's 
career.  Mr.  Gentry,  the  owner  of  the  neighborhood 
store,  looking  about  him  for  a  trustworthy  man  to 
take  a  flatboat,  or  "broad-horn,"  to  New  Orleans 
with  a  cargo  of  produce,  could  think  of  nobody  so 
safe  as  young  Lincoln.  Abraham  had  not  been 
much  away  from  home,  had  no  familiarity  with 
business  or  with  river  navigation,  and  had  never  even 
seen  the  lower  Mississippi.  But  the  trader  knew 


38  Abraham  Lincoln 

his  man,  and  an  offer  to  Lincoln,  placing  him  in  full 
charge  of  the  venture,  was  accepted,  as  he  afterwards 
said,  with  a  beating  heart.  His  good-fortune  seemed 
wonderful.  It  was  not  the  money  to  be  made  that 
young  Abraham  was  thinking  of;  it  was  the  delight 
of  seeing  the  world.  And  when  Lincoln  and  his 
companion,  y  ung  Allen  Gentry,  cut  loose  from 
Gentryville  and  slowly  drifted  down  Little  Pigeon 
Creek  into  the  Ohio,  on  a  voyage  of  eighteen  hundred 
miles,  not  Columbus  sailing  forth  into  unknown  seas, 
nor  the  master  of  the  first  steamship  that  ploughed 
the  Atlantic,  could  have  been  more  impressed  with 
the  mightiness  of  the  prospect  before  him,  than  the 
backwoods  boy  on  his  first  expedition  from  the 
forests  of  southern  Indiana. 

It  was  a  momentous  trip,  but  solely  because  it 
opened  a  new  field  to  the  wide-open  eyes  of  the 
youthful  voyagers.  As  they  descended  the  mighty 
Father  of  Waters,  then  flowing  unvexed  to  the  sea, 
plantations  began  to  dot  the  landscape.  Here  and 
there  friendly  or  inquisitive  settlers  came  down  to 
the  bank  to  ask  them  about  their  "load,"  as  a  cargo 
is  called  on  the  Western  waters.  Or,  when  they 
made  fast  to  the  most  convenient  tree  at  nightfall,  a 
far-wandering  hunter  came  to  share  "pot-luck"  and 
the  gossip  of  the  region  with  the  youthful  adven- 
turers. In  this  way  they  picked  up  a  store  of  in- 
formation, useful  and  otherwise,  and  many  a  queer 
tale  of  frontier  and  settler's  life,  which  at  least  one 
of  the  party  held  fast  ever  after  in  his  tenacious 
memory.  Now  and  again,  too,  they  passed,  or  were 
passed  by,  other  flatboats,  and  much  rude  chaffing 


Young  Manhood  39 

and  hailing  in  outlandish  slang  went  on  from  boat  to 
boat. 

One  incident,  however,  was  more  exciting  and 
dangerous  than  the  fresh-water  navigators  had  bar- 
gained for.  Tied  up  to  a  bank  at  night,  as  was  their 
custom,  the  twain  slept  soundly  after  their  day  of 
toil,  when  they  were  waked  by  a  scrambling  near  at 
hand.  Springing  to  his  feet,  Abraham  shouted, 
4 '  Who  's  there  ? ' '  There  was  no  reply,  and,  seizing 
a  handspike,  he  made  ready  for  an  attack.  Seven 
negroes,  evidently  on  an  errand  of  plunder,  now  ap- 
peared. Abe  held  himself  ready  to  ' '  repel  boarders, ' ' 
and  the  first  man  that  jumped  on  board  was  received 
with  a  heavy  blow  that  knocked  him  into  the  water. 
A  second,  a  third,  and  a  fourth,  essaying  the  same 
thing,  were  similarly  received.  The  other  three, 
seeing  that  they  were  no  match  for  the  tall  back- 
woodsman and  his  ally,  took  to  their  heels,  pursued 
by  Abe  and  Allen.  Overtaking  the  negroes,  a  hand- 
to-hand  fight  ensued,  but  the  thieves  finally  fled 
again,  leaving  on  the  future  President  a  scar  that  he 
carried  to  his  grave. 

The  voyage  to  the  lower  Mississippi  and  return 
occupied  three  months.  The  cargo  was  sold  to  good 
advantage  before  reaching  New  Orleans.  Then,  the 
empty  boat  being  disposed  of,  for  it  would  not  pay 
to  take  it  home  up-stream,  the  two  adventurers, 
elated  with  their  first  notable  success,  made  their 
way  homeward  by  steamboat.  They  had  seen  a  bit 
of  the  great  world.  And  Abraham  Lincoln  had  seen 
what  he  never  forgot,  his  first  close  view  of  human 
slavery:  slaves  toiling  on  the  plantations,  slaves 


40  Abraham  Lincoln 

bending  beneath  their  tasks  on  the  levees  of  the  river 
towns,  and,  what  was  more  memorable  than  all, 
slaves  in  squads  and  comes,  torn  from  old  homes  and 
families  far  away,  bound  up  the  river  on  the  steam- 
boats that  were  now  frequent  on  the  busy  Mississippi. 
He  who  was  to  be  known  through  all  coming  time  as 
The  Emancipator  had  made  his  first  study  of  his 
fellow-man  in  hopeless  bondage. 

It  is  well  to  consider  here  that  Abraham  Lincoln, 
up  to  this  point,  was  what  is  called  a  self-made  man 
in  the  strictest  sense  of  that  word.  What  he  had 
learned,  he  had  learned  of  himself.  What  he  knew, 
he  knew  with  absolute  accuracy.  Self-taught  and 
self-dependent,  he  had  all  his  resources,  mental, 
moral,  and  physical,  well  in  hand.  So  self-reliant 
and  yet,  withal,  so  modest  and  diffident  a  character 
was  probably  never  known  before.  Growing  up  in 
the  almost  trackless  forest,  he  had  absorbed  the  in- 
fluences of  the  wild-wood.  He  had  been  held  close 
to  nature,  had  had  as  much  time  for  solitary  medita- 
tion as  was  wholesome  for  him;  and  he  had  never 
been  for  an  hour  dependent  on  other  people,  or  on 
other  than  the  humblest  means,  for  intellectual 
stimulus.  Such  as  he  was,  it  may  be  said,  God  had 
made  and  nurtured  him  in  the  wilderness.  The  man 
that  was  within  him  was  thoroughly  original.  He 
was  not  a  copy  of  any  man,  nor  the  imitator  of  any 
human  being. 

Henceforth  he  was  not  to  be  hidden  in  the  back- 
woods. The  backwoods,  indeed,  had  begun  to 
recede  before  the  onward  march  of  civilization.  Im- 
migration was  streaming  into  Indiana.  It  could  be 


Young  Manhood  41 

no  longer  said  of  the  settlers  along  Pigeon  Creek  that 
they  were  so  far  apart  that  the  smoke  of  one  fireside 
could  not  be  seen  from  the  next  nearest.  There 
were  neighborhoods  almost  populous;  and  with 
these  came  social  sports  and  occasional  visitings, 
house-raisings,  husking-bees,  Sabbath  worship,  and 
something  like  a  neighborly  intimacy.  In  these 
changes  the  stalwart  young  pioneer,  now  six  feet 
four  inches  tall,  cut  no  mean  figure.  He  could  out- 
run and  outwalk  any  one  of  his  comrades,  and,  as 
has  been  said  by  those  who  knew  him  then, "  he  could 
strike  the  hardest  blow  with  axe  or  maul,  jump  higher 
and  farther  than  any  of  his  fellows,  and  there  was 
no  one,  far  or  near,  that  could  lay  him  on  his  back." 

These  accomplishments,  we  may  be  sure,  counted 
for  much  in  a  community  where  physical  endurance 
and  muscular  strength  were  needed  for  every  day's 
duties.  But  the  honest-eyed  and  kindly  youth, 
strong  though  he  was,  had  a  gentle  manner  that  en- 
deared him  to  everybody  that  came  in  contact  with 
him.  He  had  a  wonderful  power  of  narration.  The 
fables  of  ^Esop  were  new  as  they  fell  from  his  lips. 
A  grotesque  incident,  a  comical  story,  or  one  of  the 
frontier  traditions  learned  from  his  mother,  was  a 
dramatic  entertainment  in  his  hands.  He  kept  his 
audiences  at  the  country  store  until  midnight,  says 
one  of  his  comrades,  listening  to  his  shrewd  wisdom, 
native  wit,  and  vivid  recitals.  Poor  Dennis  Hanks, 
weary  and  sleepy,  was  often  obliged  to  trudge  home 
without  him,  after  vainly  trying  to  coax  the  eloquent 
and  fascinating  story-teller  from  the  group  of  which 
he  was  the  admired  centre. 


42  Abraham  Lincoln 

Unconsciously  to  himself,  this  simple-hearted  and 
humble-minded  young  man  was  absorbing  into  his 
own  experience  the  rude  lore  of  the  backwoodsman. 
He  was  studying  character,  filling  his  mind  with 
facts  and  experiences;  and  in  after  years,  in  other 
scenes  and  in  a  far  busier  life  than  this,  the  fresh  and 
original  pictures  that  he  sketched  in  speech  or  story 
came  from  the  panorama  of  human  action  unrolled 
before  him  in  old  Kentucky  and  southern  Indiana. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE   LINCOLNS    IN    ILLINOIS. 

The  Land  of  Full-Grown  Men — Lincoln  Attains  his  Majority — Strik- 
ing Out  for  Himself — Another  River  Voyage — An  Odd  Introduc- 
tion to  New  Salem — Some  Rough  and  Tumble  Discipline — The 
Backwoodsman  Conquers  Friends — He  Vanquishes  English 
Grammar. 

9 

ONCE  more  the  Lincoln  family  "pulled  up 
stakes"  and  moved  westward.  This  time  it 
was  to  Illinois,  which,  in  the  Indian  vernacular,  sig- 
nifies ''the  land  of  the  full-grown  men,"  that  the 
easily-entreated  Thomas  Lincoln  went.  Thomas 
Hanks,  one  of  the  most  steady  and  well-balanced  of 
this  somewhat  erratic  group  of  people,  had  gone  to 
Macon  County,  Illinois,  in  the  autumn  of  1829.  He 
had  been  so  favorably  impressed  with  what  he  saw 
and  heard  that  he  had  written  to  Thomas  Lincoln  to 
come  on  and  bring  the  family.  It  does  not  appear 
to  have  required  much  persuasion  ever  to  induce 
Thomas  Lincoln  to  change  his  place.  He  had  made 
no  progress  in  Indiana  beyond  providing  for  their 
actual  wants.  He  could  do  no  worse  in  Illinois,  ac- 
counts of  which  as  a  land  literally  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey  were  already  spreading  over  the  older 
States.  So,  in  the  spring  of  1830,  as  soon  as  the 
frost  was  out  of  the  ground,  Lincoln,  having  sold 
crops,  hogs,  and  farm  improvements  to  Mr.  Gentry, 


44  Abraham  Lincoln 

packed  all  his  remaining  earthly  possessions,  and 
those  of  his  sons-in-law,  into  a  wagon  and  set  his  face 
westward. 

The  migrating  family  was  as  follows:  Thomas 
Lincoln  and  Sarah,  his  wife ;  his  only  son,  Abraham, 
John  Johnston,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  son;  Mrs.  Hall  and 
Mrs.  Hanks,  daughters  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  and  their 
husbands.  Sarah  Lincoln,  Abraham's  sister,  had 
married  Aaron  Grigsby,  a  few  years  before,  and  had 
died  recently.  These  eight  people  took  their  weary 
way  across  the  fat  and  oozy  prairies,  black  with  rich 
loam,  bound  for  the  new  land  of  Canaan.  Two  weeks 
of  tiresome  travel  were  consumed  in  reaching  the 
place  selected  for  them  on  the  public  lands  near  the 
village  of  Decatur,  Macon  County,  by  Thomas  Hanks. 
The  entire  "outfit,"  consisting  of  one  wagon  drawn 
by  four  yoke  of  oxen,  driven  by  Abraham  Lincoln, 
came  to  anchor,  as  it  were,  on  a  patch  of  bottom-land 
hitherto  untouched  by  the  hand  of  man.  Young 
Lincoln  had  settled  finally  in  the  State  that  in  years 
to  come  was  to  borrow  new  lustre  from  his  name. 
Undreaming  of  future  greatness,  the  stalwart  young 
fellow  lent  a  hand  in  the  raising  of  the  cabin  that 
was  to  be  the  home  of  the  family.  And  when  this 
work  was  done,  and  the  immigrants  were  securely 
under  cover,  he  and  Thomas  Hanks  ploughed  fifteen 
acres  of  the  virgin  soil,  cut  down  and  split  into  rails 
sundry  walnut  logs  of  the  adjacent  forest,  worked 
out  rails,  and  fenced  his  father's  first  Illinois  farm. 

Now  it  was  time  for  young  Abraham  to  strike  out 
for  himself.  He  had  thought  of  doing  that  before, 
but  had  been  reminded  that  he  was  a  servant  to  his 


The  Lincolns  in  Illinois  45 

father  until  he  was  twenty-one  years  old.  He  was 
now  in  his  twenty-second  year,  able  and  anxious  to 
make  his  own  living.  During  the  summer  of  1830 
he  worked  at  odd  jobs  in  the  neighborhood,  always 
alert  and  cheerful,  ready  to  turn  his  hand  to  any 
honest  bit  of  work,  and  soon  growing  in  favor  with 
the  rude  and  simple  pioneers  of  southern  Illinois. 
They  were  shrewd  at  making  a  bargain,  necessarily 
compelled  to  be  chary  with  their  little  hard-earned 
cash,  greatly  given  to  trade  and  barter,  ingenious 
with  every  known  implement  of  the  rudest  sort  of 
labor,  free  from  fear  of  theft  or  malicious  violence, 
and  fond  of  roystering  and  the  rough  sports  of  the 
frontier.  As  in  all  new  countries,  game  was  abund- 
ant, and,  although  the  days  when  skins  were  made 
into  garments  had  passed,  hunting  still  supplied 
many  a  family  with  the  staple  articles  of  diet.  The 
flesh  of  wild  beasts  and  birds  was  supplemented  by 
the  slab-like  sides  of  smoked  pork,  and  the  corn  that 
grew  thickly  in  the  unctuous  fields  of  the  new-comers 
furnished  bread  for  the  eater  and  seed  for  the  sower. 
In  scenes  like  these  Abraham  Lincoln  now  grew  to 
man's  estate.  The  tall  young  fellow  speedily  made 
a  name  for  himself  as  one  of  the  most  obliging,  un- 
gainly, strong,  long-legged,  and  cheery  fellows  in  the 
Sangamon  country.  It  was  not  until  the  winter  of 
the  deep  snow  that  Lincoln  undertook  any  scheme 
other  than  the  desultory  employment  that  he  found 
among  the  farmers  from  day  to  day.  "The  winter 
of  the  deep  snow ' '  was  that  of  1 83  0-3 1 .  This  is  unto 
this  day  a  memorable  period  of  time  in  central 
Illinois.  It  marks  an  historical  epoch  as  distinct  as 


46  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  great  fire  did  in  London,  years  before.  The  snow- 
fall began  on  Christmas  day.  It  continued  until 
the  snow  was  three  feet  deep  on  a  level.  Then  came 
a  drizzling  rain  that  froze  as  it  fell,  the  thermometer 
sinking  to  twelve  degrees  below  zero.  The  intense 
cold,  the  difficulty  of  getting  about,  made  that  win- 
ter famous  forever  after  in  the  annals  of  the  country. 
Herds  of  deer  were  easily  caught  and  killed,  im- 
prisoned as  they  were  in  the  icy  crust  that  broke 
beneath  their  sharp  feet.  Game  of  all  kinds  was 
slaughtered  by  the  thousands  of  head  by  the  hungry 
settlers,  as  they  came  out  of  their  scattered  villages 
in  search  of  food,  and  from  that  day  large  game 
never  again  was  so  plenty  in  the  State.  Roads 
were  finally  broken  from  cabin  to  cabin  and  from 
hamlet  to  hamlet  by  "wallowing,"  as  it  was  called — 
the  entire  population,  men,  women,  children,  dogs, 
oxen,  and  horses,  turning  out  en  masse  and  trampling 
down  and  kicking  out  the  snow.  Long  after  plough- 
ing had  begun,  next  spring,  the  muddy-white  founda- 
tions of  these  rural  roads  remained,  unmelted,  to 
stretch  across  the  black  soil  of  the  prairies. 

During  the  winter  of  the  deep  snow,  young  Lincoln 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Denton  Offutt,  a  small 
trader  of  the  region.  Hearing  that  Lincoln  and 
Hanks  were  "likely  young  fellows,"  Offutt  proposed 
that  they  should  take  a  boatload  of  provisions  to 
New  Orleans  for  him.  The  boys  were  right  glad 
to  take  such  an  offer,  especially  as  Offutt  agreed  to 
"find  them" — that  is  to  say,  to  furnish  their  food — 
and  to  pay  them  fifty  cents  a  day,  and,  if  the  venture 
was  successful,  to  give  them  a  further  reward  of 


The  Lincolns  in  Illinois  47 

twenty  dollars  each.  This  was  great  prospective 
riches  to  the  youngsters,  neither  of  whom  had  ever 
had  so  much  money  at  one  time.  John  Johnston, 
Abraham's  foster-brother,  was  added  to  the  crew, 
and,  having  built  their  flatboat,  the  party,  Offutt, 
Abraham  Lincoln,  John  Hanks,  and  John  Johnston, 
embarked  on  the  roaring,  raging  Sangamon  at 
Springfield.  Although  the  river  was,  to  use  a  cur- 
rent Western  expression,  booming  with  the  spring 
freshets,  when  the  frail  craft  reached  New  Salem,  a 
mushroom  village  not  far  below  the  point  of  depart- 
ure, it  stuck  on  a  milldam,  and  there  it  stuck  and 
hung,  apparently  hopeless  of  ever  getting  off.  The 
population  of  New  Salem  came  down  to  the  river's 
margin,  commented  on  the  disaster,  chaffed  and 
hectored  the  shipwrecked  mariners,  and  generally 
made  merry  over  the  affair,  to  the  annoyance  of  the 
owner.  But  "the  bow  oar,"  a  giant,  as  the  shore 
people  thought  him,  rolled  up  his  trousers,  waded 
into  the  stream,  unloaded  the  barge,  whose  nose  was 
well  out  of  water  while  her  stern  was  well  under  it, 
bored  holes  to  let  out  the  flood,  and  rigged  up  a  con- 
trivance to  hoist  the  boat  over  the  dam.  This  done, 
the  craft  was  again  loaded,  the  holes  being  plugged, 
and,  amidst  the  cheers  of  the  critical  population,  the 
voyagers  shot  down  stream  on  their  rejoicing  way. 
Years  after,  when  Lincoln  was  a  practising  lawyer, 
he  whittled  out  a  model  of  his  invention  for  hoisting 
vessels  over  shoals  and  had  it  patented  in  Washing- 
ton. The  curious  visitor  to  the  Patent  Office  in  the 
national  capital  is  shown  to-day  a  little  wooden  boat 
and  an  odd  combination  of  strips  and  bars  by  which, 


48  Abraham  Lincoln 

as  Mr.  Lincoln  afterwards  said,  a  man  might  lift 
himself  over  a  rail-fence  by  the  waistband  of  his 
breeches. 

The  adventurers  had  a  swift  and  prosperous  voy- 
age down  the  river  to  New  Orleans.  This  was  Lin- 
coln's second  visit  to  the  land  of  slavery.  He  saw 
more  of  the  peculiar  institution  than  before.  He 
saw  men  and  women  whipped,  bought,  and  sold, 
families  separated,  children  torn  from  their  parents 
and  wives  from  their  husbands,  without  any  sign 
of  compunction  on  the  part  of  buyers,  sellers,  and 
owners.  It  was  a  thrilling  sight  to  the  young 
pioneer  of  the  West.  In  later  years  John  Hanks 
said :  ' '  Lincoln  saw  it ;  his  heart  bled ;  said  nothing 
much,  was  silent,  looked  bad.  I  can  say  it,  knowing 
him,  that  it  was  on  this  trip  that  he  formed  his 
opinions  of  slavery.  It  run  its  iron  into  him  then 
and  there,  May,  1831." 

There  is  a  tradition  that  it  was  during  this  visit  to 
Louisiana  that  Lincoln  met  an  aged  negress  who 
pretended  to  be  a  Voudoo  seeress,  or  fortune-teller, 
and  that  she  said  to  him:  "You  will  be  President, 
and  all  the  negroes  will  be  free."  This  is  not  au- 
thenticated. It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  seeress  had 
said  that  same  thing  to  a  great  many  young  men. 
We  do  know  that  Lincoln  was  always  superstitious. 
He  was  brought  up  to  regard  signs  and  wonders, 
dreams  and  fortune-tellings.  If  he  did  hear  this 
from  the  Voudoo  woman,  he  would  be  sure  to 
remember  it  all  his  days.  And  he  never  spoke  of  it 
to  his  most  intimate  friends  in  later  years. 

On  his  return  from  New  Orleans,  so  well  had 


The  Lincolns  in  Illinois  49 

Lincoln  commended  himself  to  Offutt  that  that 
worthy  man  engaged  him  to  take  charge  of  a  small 
country  store  which  he  had  opened  at  New  Salem, 
and  the  little  community  that  had  witnessed  the 
struggle  and  triumph  of  the  long-legged  young  giant 
on  Rutledge's  dam  now  made  the  acquaintance  of 
the  hero  of  that  exploit  at  closer  range.  He  at  once 
established  himself  as  a  favorite  with  the  people, 
who,  rude  and  rough  though  they  were,  readily  ap- 
preciated the  good  qualities  of  any  stranger  that 
came  among  them.  All  were  strangers  to  each  other 
at  first,  in  those  changeable  times.  Villages  grew 
and  fell  into  nothingness  again ;  large  tracts  of  land 
were  covered  with  cabins  of  settlers  and  were  again 
depopulated  as  the  fancy  of  the  wandering  tribes 
seized  them.  New  Salem  was  very  new  when  Lin- 
coln was  stuck  on  the  dam  before  it;  he  spent 
only  a  short  time  there,  giving  it  an  immortality  of 
name  that  few  villages  ever  earn ;  it  faded  away  into 
nothingness  and  its  site  was  forgotten,  after  he  went 
away. 

In  managing  the  country  store,  as  in  everything 
that  he  undertook  for  others,  Lincoln  did  his  very 
best.  He  was  honest,  civil,  ready  to  do  anything 
that  should  encourage  customers  to  come  to  the 
place,  full  of  pleasantries,  patient,  and  alert.  On 
one  occasion,  finding,  late  at  night,  when  he  counted 
over  his  cash,  that  he  had  taken  a  few  cents  from  a 
customer  more  than  was  due,  he  closed  the  store  and 
walked  a  long  distance  to  make  good  the  deficiency. 
At  another  time,  discovering  on  the  scales,  in  the 
morning,  a  weight  with  which  he  had  weighed  out  a 


50  Abraham  Lincoln 

package  of  tea  for  a  woman,  the  night  before,  he  saw 
that  he  had  given  her  too  little  for  her  money;  he 
weighed  out  what  was  due  and  carried  it  to  her, 
much  to  the  surprise  of  the  woman,  who  had  not 
known  that  she  was  short  in  the  amount  of  her  pur- 
chase. Innumerable  incidents  of  this  sort  are  related 
of  Lincoln ;  and  we  should  not  have  space  to  tell 
of  the  alertness  with  which  he  sprung  to  protect 
defenceless  women  from  insult,  or  feeble  children 
from  tyranny;  for  in  the  rude  community  in  which 
he  lived  the  rights  of  the  defenceless  were  not  always 
respected  as  they  should  have  been.  There  were 
bullies  then,  as  now. 

Lincoln  soon  had  a  taste  of  the  quality  of  some  of 
these.  Not  far  from  New  Salem  was  a  group  of 
farms  in  what  was  known  as  Clary's  Grove.  The 
"  Clary's  Grove  boys,"  as  the  overgrown  young  men 
of  the  settlement  were  called,  were  rude,  boisterous, 
swaggering,  and  tremendous  fighters.  They  cast 
their  eyes  on  the  young  stranger  at  Offutt's  store,  so 
well  liked  by  the  women,  and  resolved  that  he  should 
be  "taken  down  a  peg."  Stories  of  young  Lincoln's 
prowess  in  wrestling  had  gone  abroad,  perhaps,  and 
the  conceit  which  the  boys  of  Clary's  Grove  thought 
was  in  the  stranger  was  to  be  taken  out  of  him. 
Jack  Armstrong,  the  bully  of  the  band,  was  pitched 
upon  to  lay  low  Abe  Lincoln.  The  crowd  gathered 
around  to  see  the  sport,  but  the  stalwart  young 
Kentuckian  soon  showed  that  he  was  more  than  a 
match  for  the  champion  of  Clary's  Grove.  Jack 
Armstrong  was  slowly  sinking  under  the  vigorous 
wrestling  of  the  long-limbed  Lincoln,  and  the  entire 


The  Lincolns  in  Illinois  51 

gang  were  ready  to  break  in  and  overwhelm  him. 
Jack  resorted  to  foul  play,  in  his  desperation,  and 
Lincoln,  stung  by  this  meanness,  seized  the  bully  by 
the  throat,  with  both  hands,  and,  putting  forth  all  his 
giant  strength,  flung  him  in  the  air,  shaking  him  as 
though  he  were  a  child,  the  legs  of  the  champion 
whirling  madly  over  his  head.  At  this  astounding 
performance,  the  gang  of  Clary's  Grove  broke  into 
the  circle,  and  Lincoln,  backing  against  the  store, 
calmly  waited  their  onset ;  but  Jack  Armstrong,  with 
what  breath  remained  to  him,  warned  off  his  com- 
rades, and,  touched  by  a  feeling  of  chivalry,  shook 
his  adversary  by  the  hand,  crying:  "Boys,  Abe 
Lincoln  is  the  best  fellow  that  ever  broke  into  this 
settlement!  He  shall  be  one  of  us!"  That  settled 
it.  Out  of  the  fight  that  he  had  tried  to  avoid, 
Lincoln  emerged  as  champion.  Thenceforth,  no 
truer  friend,  no  more  devoted  ally  than  Jack  Arm- 
strong to  Abraham  Lincoln  ever  lived.  In  later 
days,  when  Lincoln  was  out  of  money,  out  of  work, 
all  that  Jack  had  was  his.  And  when,  at  very  rare 
intervals,  some  reckless  fellow  disregarded  Lincoln's 
claim  to  championship,  he  quickly  learned  from  the 
patient,  long-suffering  young  giant,  when  he  had 
been  pressed  too  far,  that  this  man  was  the  toughest 
athlete  in  that  settlement. 

The  reader  should  not  be  misled  with  a  notion  that 
Lincoln  loved  fighting  and  strife;  far  from  it,  he  was 
always  a  man  of  peace.  It  was  only  when  he  was 
pushed  and  provoked  beyond  endurance  that  he 
burst  upon  his  tormentor  and  punished  him  so 
thoroughly  and  speedily  that,  as  the  saying  is,  he  did 


UNIVERSITY  Ofi 
ILLINOIS  LIBRAW 


52  Abraham  Lincoln 

not  know  what  hurt  him,  and  when  the  punishment 
was  over,  the  good-natured  young  giant  was  ready 
to  soothe  the  feelings  of  the  vanquished.  When  he 
had  knocked  down  and  mauled  a  bully,  and  had 
rubbed  his  face  with  smart-weed,  by  way  of  ridicu- 
lous discipline,  he  let  him  up,  helped  him  to  compose 
his  disorder  and  brought  him  water  to  assuage  the 
woes  of  his  irritated  countenance.  Lincoln  was  no 
fighter.  He  was  brave,  absolutely  unafraid  of  any- 
body or  anything.  He  never  played  cards,  nor  gam- 
bled, nor  smoked,  nor  used  profane  language,  nor 
addicted  himself  to  any  of  the  rude  vices  of  the  times. 
But  far  and  wide  he  was  reckoned  a  hero,  worshipped 
by  the  stalwart  wrestlers  and  runners  of  the  region, 
cordially  liked  by  the  women,  respected  as  a  rising 
and  brave  young  fellow  by  the  elders,  and  earning 
for  himself  the  title  that  stuck  to  him  through  life, 
"honest  Abe." 

Abe  Lincoln  became,  by  general  consent,  the  peace- 
maker, the  arbitrator  of  all  the  petty  quarrels  of  the 
neighborhood.  Shunning  vulgar  brawls  himself,  he 
attempted  to  keep  others  out  of  them.  An  abso- 
lutely honest  man,  he  advised  exact  justice  to  all 
who  sought  his  advice ;  and,  whenever  there  was  too 
much  violence  developed  in  debate  around  Offutt's 
store  door,  the  tall  form  of  the  young  manager 
was  sure  to  be  seen  towering  over  the  conflict ;  and 
when  argument  failed  to  quell  the  disturbance,  the 
terrific  windmill  of  those  long  arms  invariably 
brought  peace.  In  all  his  activities,  however,  Lin- 
coln never  for  one  moment  knew  what  it  was  to 
"let  up "  on  his  reading  and  studies.  There  is  some- 


The  Lincolns  in  Illinois  53 

thing  saddening  in  the  record  of  his  struggles  to 
master  everything  that  he  thought  worth  knowing 
that  was  within  his  reach.  Very  poor  he  was,  but 
he  skimped  himself  and  went  without  what  many 
boys  would  call  necessary  clothing  to  subscribe  to  the 
Louisville  Courier,  then  edited  by  that  famous  Whig 
George  D.  Prentice,  a  witty  and  most  brilliant  man. 
This  was,  as  he  afterwards  said,  his  greatest  luxury. 
He  read  every  word,  and  some  of  its  articles  were 
committed  to  memory  by  sheer  force  of  habit.  Pon- 
dering over  the  editorial  articles  of  his  favorite 
newspaper,  he  attempted  to  discover  how  they  were 
constructed,  and  what  were  the  rules  by  which  lan- 
guage was  composed  and  sentences  framed.  Appli- 
cation to  the  village  schoolmaster  gave  him  a  hint 
as  to  grammar,  and  he  was  not  satisfied  until  he 
had  hunted  down,  somewhere  in  the  region,  a  copy 
of  "Kirkham's  Grammar."  This  he  carried  home, 
borrowed,  in  great  triumph,  nor  did  he  pause  until  he 
had  mastered  its  contents.  Speaking  of  it,  long 
afterwards,  he  said  that  he  was  surprised  to  find  how 
little  there  was  in  a  work  that  was  made  so  much  of 
by  the  schoolmaster.  He  had  "collared"  it  in  a 
week,  and  had  returned  the  book  to  its  owner. 


CHAPTER  V. 

A   PLUNGE    INTO    POLITICS. 

Young  Lincoln's  Growing  Passion  for  Knowledge — Candidate  for  the 
State  Legislature — Captain  in  the  Black  Hawk  War — A  Gather- 
ing of  Men  Since  Famous — Hardships  of  the  Volunteer  Soldiers 
— Stump-Speaking  and  Defeat — Lincoln  as  a  Country  Merchant 
— Lawyer  and  Surveyor. 

UP  to  this  time,  Lincoln  had  never  held  any  office, 
except  that  of  an  occasional  clerk  of  election. 
So  far  as  we  know,  he  never  had  any  ambition  for 
office-holding.  But  the  spring  of  1 83  2  found  him  out 
of  business,  out  of  work.  Offutt's  store  had  gone  to 
pieces,  that  gentleman's  numerous  irons  in  the  fire 
having  at  last  proved  too  many  for  him.  If  ever 
Lincoln  was  at  liberty  to  try  his  hand  at  politics,  this 
was  the  time.  He  had  been  trained,  or  rather  had 
grown  up,  in  the  backwoods,  had  gradually  made  the 
acquaintance  of  mankind,  had  meditated  and  read  as 
no  young  man  ever  before  had  meditated  and  read, 
and  had  accustomed  himself  to  speak  extemporane- 
ously. He  was  a  good  story-teller,  alert,  quick- 
witted, full  of  apt  illustration  and  anecdote,  was  so 
close  a  student  of  human  nature  that  he  was  always 
able  to  adapt  himself  to  his  little  audience,  whether 
it  was  the  group  of  loungers  about  the  blacksmith's 
shop  at  the  crossroads,  or  the  knot  of  farm  laborers 
that  gathered  about  to  hear  him  "make  a  speech" 

64 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  55 

on  internal  improvements.  And,  above  all,  by  his 
unvarying  good-nature  and  helpfulness,  he  had  made 
friends  of  all  who  ever  met  him. 

One  historian,  who  happened  to  see  him  about  this 
time,  says  he  found  him  lying  on  a  trundle-bed, 
reading  intently  while  he  rocked  a  cradle  with  his 
foot.  He  had  plenty  of  leisure;  he  was  ready  to 
lend  a  hand  (or  foot)  to  any  overworked  housewife, 
but  he  could  not  neglect  his  book.  Always  a  book 
was  ready  to  his  hand,  and  it  is  said  of  him  that  when 
he  had  nothing  else  to  do  he  laid  himself  at  length 
in  the  shade  of  a  tree,  wheeling  around  with  the  sun 
all  day  long,  reading,  reading,  always  reading.  At 
the  bottom  of  a  barrel  of  "trash"  that  Offutt  had 
bought  of  some  speculative  person,  or  had  taken  in 
exchange  for  goods,  Lincoln  found  two  old  law  books. 
On  these  he  fell  like  a  hungry  child,  and  he  never  left 
them  until  he  had  mastered  their  contents,  dry  and 
indigestible  though  they  might  have  seemed  to  the 
average  youngster  of  his  day.  In  this  way,  Lincoln 
had  absorbed  a  great  deal  of  useful  knowledge.  He 
was  always  thirsty  for  information.  If  he  heard  of  a 
new  book — and  new  books  were  pretty  scarce  in  those 
days — he  was  restless  until  he  had  got  a  sight  at 
it.  For  this  purpose  he  walked  many  a  mile,  count- 
ing no  labor,  no  privation,  anything  if  it  brought  him 
nearer  the  coveted  information  of  men  and  things. 
He  was  accounted  very  learned  by  those  of  his 
neighbors  who  knew  aught  of  his  studies;  not  that 
his  knowledge  was  aired  with  any  pride,  but  they 
argued  that  nobody  could  read  so  much  as  he  and 
not  be  very  erudite.  And  in  the  village  debates, 


56  Abraham  Lincoln 

held  in  the  country  store  or  at  other  lounging-places, 
the  admiring  community  united  in  the  verdict  that 
"Abe  Lincoln  could  out-argue  any  ten  men  in  the 
settlement." 

Lincoln  resolved  to  become  a  candidate  for  repre- 
sentative to  the  Legislature,  and  in  a  circular,  dated 
March  9,  1832,  he  appealed  to  his  friends  and  fellow- 
citizens  to  vote  for  him.  He  had  by  this  time  be- 
come a  pronounced  Whig  in  politics,  following  in  the 
footsteps  of  his  great  chief  and  pattern,  Henry  Clay. 
But  he  hoped,  and  not  without  reason,  to  secure 
many  of  the  votes  of  those  who  knew  and  liked  him 
for  his  manly  and  admirable  qualities.  Before  the 
election  came  on,  however,  there  was  a  call  for  volun- 
teers to  repel  hostile  Indians.  The  famous  chief 
Black  Hawk  was  on  the  warpath.  During  the  pre- 
vious year,  the  Sacs,  of  whom  Black  Hawk  was  the 
recognized  leader,  had  given  much  trouble  to  the 
settlers  along  the  east  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  in 
Illinois.  By  treaty,  the  band  had  gone  to  the  west 
of  the  river  and  had  given  up  all  claim  to  their  old 
hunting-grounds  and  corn-fields  on  the  other  side  of 
the  stream;  but  they  insisted  that  they  had  been 
wrongfully  dealt  with  by  the  white  man,  and  that 
they  still  had  a  right  to  "make  corn"  in  their  old 
haunts.  It  is  a  matter  of  record,  too,  that  they  had 
been  shamefully  treated  by  some  of  the  settlers,  and 
that,  on  the  least  provocation,  they  were  made  to 
suffer  the  white  man's  vengeance.  These  troubles 
came  to  a  head  in  May,  1832,  when  Black  Hawk,  at 
the  head  of  about  forty  braves,  crossed  the  Missis- 
sippi near  the  mouth  of  the  Rock  River,  in  the 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  57 

northern  part  of  the  State,  and  pursued  his  way  up- 
stream in  a  leisurely  manner.  The  governor  of  the 
State  called  for  two  thousand  volunteers.  The 
country  was  panic-stricken. 

Lincoln  was  among  the  first  to  volunteer.  Whether 
he  went  from  pure  love  of  adventure,  or  because  he 
thought  his  services  in  the  expected  war  would  help 
him  in  his  canvass,  we  can  only  guess.  At  the  head 
of  a  party  of  Sangamon  County  men,  among  whom 
were  many  of  the  Clary's  Grove  boys,  Lincoln  made 
his  way  to  the  north,  where  General  Atkinson,  then 
in  command  of  the  small  United  States  force  operat- 
ing in  the  region,  was  encamped.  The  company  was 
organized  in  Rushville,  Schuyler  County,  and  Lin- 
coln was  chosen  captain.  The  only  other  candidate 
for  martial  honors  was  one  Kirkpatrick,  a  substan- 
tial trader  from  the  New  Salem  country,  with  whom 
Lincoln  liad  had  a  slight  difference  before  that,  owing 
to  Kirkpatrick' s  overbearing  manners  towards  the 
young  backwoodsman.  The  Clary's  Grove  boys 
insisted  that  nobody  but  Lincoln  should  lead  them 
to  the  war.  Word  was  given  that  all  in  favor  of 
Lincoln  should  range  themselves  by  his  side,  as  he 
stood  on  the  village  green,  and  all  who  favored  Kirk- 
patrick should  take  position  near  him.  When  the 
lines  were  formed,  Lincoln's  was  three  times  as  long 
as  Kirkpatrick's,  and  so  he  was  joyfully  declared  to 
be  elected.  This  unsought  honor,  the  first  elective 
office  that  he  ever  held,  gave  Lincoln  so  much  pleas- 
ure that  years  after,  when  he  was  President,  he  said 
that  nothing  that  came  to  him  afforded  him  so  much 
solid  satisfaction. 


58  Abraham  Lincoln 

Lincoln's  company  was  mustered  into  the  service 
of  the  United  States  at  Dixon's  Ferry,  Rock  River, 
by  Robert  Anderson,  a  lieutenant  and  assistant  in- 
spector-general of  the  army.  The  little  force  re- 
ported to  Colonel  Zachary  Taylor,  U.  S.  Army.  In 
later  years,  Robert  Anderson  commanded  at  Fort 
Sumter  when  the  first  gun  of  the  rebellion  was  fired. 
As  "Rough  and  Ready"  General  Taylor  was  en- 
deared to  the  hearts  of  his  countrymen,  and  he  was 
elected  to  the  Presidency  in  1848.  The  campaign 
against  Black  Hawk  was  short  and  decisive. 

Two  incidents  are  related  of  Lincoln.  An  aged 
Indian,  half-starved  and  alone,  came  into  camp 
one  day,  bearing  a  safe-conduct  from  General  Cass. 
The  soldiers,  infuriated  by  some  recent  atrocities  of 
Black  Hawk's  men,  fell  upon  him  and  would  have 
killed  him.  Lincoln,  hearing  the  tumult,  burst 
excitedly  into  the  group  and,  throwing  up  their 
levelled  muskets  with  his  own  hands,  cried:  "Boys! 
You  shall  not  do  this  thing!  You  shall  not  shoot  at 
this  Indian!"  For  an  instant,  he  stood  defiantly 
between  the  red  refugee  and  his  assailants,  sheltering 
him  from  their  ready  weapons,  and  it  was  for  a  time 
doubtful  if  both  would  not  bite  the  dust.  But  the 
men,  seeing  the  courage  and  manliness  of  their  cap- 
tain, lowered  their  guns  and  turned  sullenly  away. 
One  of  Lincoln's  faithful  comrades,  Bill  Green,  said 
of  this:  "I  never  saw  Lincoln  so  roused  before." 

When  Lincoln  was  in  the  White  House  he  told  this 
story :  The  only  time  he  ever  saw  blood  in  this  cam- 
paign was  one  morning  when,  marching  up  a  little 
valley  that  makes  into  the  Rock  River  bottom,  to 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  59 

reinforce  a  squad  of  outposts  that  were  thought  to  be 
in  danger,  they  came  upon  the  tent  occupied  by  the 
other  party,  just  at  sunrise.  The  men  had  neglected 
to  place  any  guard  at  night,  and  had  been  slaughtered 
in  their  sleep.  As  the  reinforcing  party  came  up  the 
slope  on  which  the  camp  had  been  made,  Lincoln  saw 
them  all  lying  with  their  heads  toward  the  rising  sun, 
and  the  round  red  spots  that  marked  where  they  had 
been  scalped  gleamed  more  redly  yet  in  the  ruddy 
light  of  the  sun.  This  was  Lincoln's  first  glimpse 
of  what  war  might  be,  and  years  afterwards,  when  the 
land  was  being  desolated,  he  recalled  it  with  a  certain 
shudder. 

The  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend  of  the  troops 
was  John  Dixon,  even  then  known  as  Father  Dixon, 
the  pioneer,  who  kept  a  ferry  on  the  Rock  River,  at 
the  point  where  the  Galena  wagon-road  to  the  lower 
part  of  the  State  crossed  the  stream.  Father  Dixon 
was  well  known  to  the  Indians  as  "Na-chu-sa,"  or 
"the  white-haired."  On  that  historic  spot,  where 
met  Lieutenant-Colonel  Zachary  Taylor,  Lieutenant 
Jefferson  Davis,  Lieutenant  Robert  Anderson,  and 
Private  Abraham  Lincoln,  now  stands  the  city  of 
Dixon,  in  Lee  County.  At  that  time  it  was  only  a 
hamlet  of  log  houses  that  marked  the  spot,  and  the 
rope-ferry  of  Father  Dixon  was  all  the  means  of  com- 
munication between  the  shores  now  spanned  by 
sundry  railroad  and  wagon  thoroughfares.  The  ad- 
vance guard  of  all  scouting  parties,  according  to 
Father  Dixon,  was  Lincoln,  whose  keen  eyes  and 
subtle  woodcraft  enabled  him  to  detect  signs  of 
Indians  that  less  skilful  observers  would  fail  to  note. 


60  Abraham  Lincoln 

At  night,  loitering  around  the  camp-fire, the  volunteer 
soldiers  drank  in  with  delight  the  jests  and  stories  of 
the  tall  captain,  ^sop's  fables  in  new  dress  he  gave 
them,  or  he  recounted  the  tales  of  war,  humor,  and 
wild  adventure  that  he  had  brought  away  with  him 
from  Kentucky  and  Indiana.  It  was  related  of  him, 
too,  that  his  inspiration  was  never  stimulated  by 
recourse  to  the  whiskey- jug.  When  his  grateful  and 
delighted  auditors  pressed  this  on  him,  he  had  one 
reply:  "Thank  you,  I  never  drink  it." 

During  the  short  campaign,  the  time  for  which  the 
men  enlisted  expired,  and  some  of  the  tired  soldiers 
gladly  went  home.  But  Lincoln  again  re-enlisted, 
this  time  serving  as  a  private,  and  he  was  a  second 
time  mustered  in  by  Lieutenant  Anderson.  The 
fighting,  however,  was  practically  over,  and  Lincoln 
and  his  comrade  George  W.  Harrison  started  for 
New  Salem,  having  been  mustered  out  at  White- 
water. 

In  1848,  while  Lincoln  was  in  Congress,  General 
Lewis  Cass  was  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  and 
his  friends  made  much  of  his  military  record.  To 
Lincoln's  mind,  ever  disposed  to  the  humorous  side 
of  things,  this  seemed  absurd,  and,  addressing  the 
Chair,  one  day,  in  the  course  of  debate,  he  said : 

"  Did  you  know,  Mr.  Speaker,  I  am  a  military  hero?  In 
the  days  of  the  Black  Hawk  war  I  fought,  bled,  and  came 
away.  I  was  not  at  Stillman's  defeat,  but  I  was  about  as 
near  it  as  General  Cass  was  to  Hull's  surrender;  and, 
like  him,  I  saw  the  place  very  soon  afterwards.  It  is 
quite  certain  I  did  not  break  my  sword,  for  I  had  none 
to  break,  but  I  bent  my  musket  pretty  badly  on  one 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  61 

occasion.  If  General  Cass  went  in  advance  of  me  picking 
whortleberries,  I  guess  I  surpassed  him  in  charges  on 
the  wild  onions.  If  he  saw  any  live  fighting  Indians,  it 
was  more  than  I  did,  but  I  had  a  good  many  bloody 
struggles  with  the  mosquitoes;  and  although  I  never 
fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  I  can  truly  say  I  was  often 
very  hungry.  Mr.  Speaker,  if  ever  I  should  conclude  to 
doff  whatever  our  Democratic  friends  may  suppose  there 
is  of  black-cockade  Federalism  about  me,  and  thereupon 
they  shall  take  me  up  as  their  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency, I  protest  that  they  shall  not  make  fun  of  me,  as 
they  have  of  General  Cass,  by  attempting  to  write  me 
into  a  military  hero." 

On  their  way  home,  the  two  heroes  of  the  Black 
Hawk  war  had  their  only  horse  stolen  from  them. 
They  had  been  proceeding  in  the  manner  known  as 
"ride  and  tie,"  taking  alternate  spells  on  the  horse's 
back;  now  they  were  forced  to  take  "shanks  mare" 
and  they  made  their  weary  way  to  Sangamon 
County,  where  the  tall  champion  story-teller  and 
debater  had  only  ten  days  to  make  his  canvass  for  the 
seat  in  the  Legislature  to  which  he  aspired.  Part  of 
the  way  down  the  Illinois  they  floated  in  a  canoe  that 
they  bought  at  a  great  bargain,  and  then  they  walked 
across  country  for  New  Salem.  The  election  soon 
came  on,  and,  although  Lincoln  received  a  majority 
of  the  votes  of  his  own  precinct,  he  was  not  chosen 
to  the  Legislature.  For  member  of  Congress,  both 
candidates  together  received  in  New  Salem  206 
votes;  Lincoln  received  207.  This  tribute  to  his 
personal  popularity  gratified  Lincoln  very  much. 
He  had  not  built  great  hopes  on  his  election,  and  he 


62  Abraham  Lincoln 

was  not  seriously  disappointed  by  his  failure  to  get 
a  majority  of  all  the  votes  in  the  district.  In  those 
primitive  days,  it  was  not  usual  for  candidates  to 
expend  much  money  in  a  canvass,  and  this  fact  did 
not  make  Lincoln's  defeat  so  great  a  misfortune  to 
him  as  it  might  have  been  under  other  circumstances. 

In  his  speeches,  we  are  told,  Lincoln  announced 
himself  opposed  to  the  party  then  in  power.  In  the 
circular  before  mentioned  he  had  taken  ground  as  a 
Whig;  and  in  one  of  the  few  speeches  of  which  we 
have  scanty  reports  he  said:  "I  am  in  favor  of  a 
national  bank ;  I  am  in  favor  of  the  internal  improve- 
ment system,  and  of  a  protective  tariff.  These  are 
my  sentiments  and  political  principles."  They  were 
sentiments  and  principles  exactly  opposed  to  the 
party  in  power.  Andrew  Jackson  was  President  of 
the  United  States.  He  had  informed  the  Demo- 
cratic party  with  a  spirit  of  proscription,  and  it  had 
been  publicly  announced  that  every  man  who  was 
not  a  "whole-hog  Jackson  man"  was  to  be  whipped 
out  of  place  and  office — "like  dogs  out  of  a  smoke- 
house" was  the  homely  and  striking  phrase  used.  It 
cost  some  effort,  perhaps,  for  a  poor  and  compara- 
tively unknown  young  man,  without  family  friends 
to  back  him,  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the  despised 
minority.  But  in  that  path  Lincoln  followed. 

Lincoln's  canvass  brought  him  into  contact  with 
many  of  the  prominent  men  of  that  part  of  the  State. 
His  speeches  were  argumentative,  interspersed  with 
racy  anecdotes,  full  of  humor,  and  more  diffuse,  per- 
haps, than  those  delivered  in  later  years.  He  had 
already  won  a  local  repute  for  his  shrewd  reasoning, 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  63 

and  one  who  often  heard  him  at  that  time  has  borne 
testimony  to  the  convincing  character  of  his  logic. 
Dr.  A.  G.  Henry,  an  intimate  friend  and  neighbor, 
said  that  men  whose  principles  were  opposed  to 
Lincoln's  sometimes  refused  to  hear  him  speak. 
"He  makes  me  believe  him  whether  I  will  or  no," 
said  one  of  these  unwilling  "whole-hog  Jackson 
men/'  Of  his  personal  appearance,  another,  Judge 
S.  T.  Logan,  said:  "He  was  a  very  tall,  gawky,  and 
awkward-looking  young  fellow  then ;  his  pantaloons 
did  n't  meet  his  shoes  by  six  inches.  But  after  he 
began  speaking,  I  became  very  much  interested  in 
him. ' '  Lincoln's  manner  when  ' '  on  the  stump' '  was 
that  of  a  man  wholly  at  ease,  awkward  although  his 
personal  appearance  may  have  been. 

In  those  far-off  days,  on  the  frontiers  of  the  new 
country,  people  were  careless  of  dress,  rude  in  man- 
ners, and  free  and  easy  in  their  relations  with  each 
other.  To  take  the  stump  was  to  mount  the  most 
convenient  object  around  which  people  could  gather, 
even  the  stump  of  a  newly  felled  tree,  and  address 
the  voters  assembled  in  a  homely,  off-hand,  and  ar- 
gumentative manner,  urging  the  reasons  why  the 
speaker  should  be  chosen  to  the  place  for  which  he 
was  a  candidate.  It  was  not  uncommon  for  the 
audience  to  ask  questions  of  the  speaker,  while  he 
was  in  full  tide  of  his  address.  Lincoln  always 
answered  these  queries,  when  they  were  not  imperti- 
nent, with  ready  good-humor  and  generally  with 
what  was  called  "an  actual  settler  of  an  argument." 
On  one  occasion,  seeing  from  his  elevation  that  a 
friend  of  his  in  the  crowd  before  him  had  been 


64  Abraham  Lincoln 

attacked  by  a  ruffianly  fellow,  and  was  getting  the 
worst  of  it,  Lincoln  descended  from  his  temporary 
rostrum,  seized  the  assailant  by  the  scruff  of  the 
neck,  threw  him  about  ten  feet,  and  then,  having  dis- 
charged his  duty  as  a  keeper  of  the  peace,  calmly 
remounted  the  stump  and  went  on  with  his  speech 
as  if  nothing  had  happened  to  interrupt  it.  A  man 
who,  on  fit  occasions,  was  as  ready  with  his  muscle  as 
with  his  mental  power  had  many  friends  in  the 
frontier  region. 

Defeated  in  his  race  for  the  Legislature,  a  dis- 
banded volunteer,  with  his  late  employer  in  bank- 
ruptcy, Lincoln  was  forced  to  look  around  him  for 
some  means  of  livelihood.  He  had  none.  He  had 
dabbled  in  politics  and  done  some  campaigning,  and 
these  occupations  had  unfitted  him  for  resuming  his 
place  as  a  day  laborer.  Money  was  scarce  with 
everybody  in  those  parts.  Most  financial  transac- 
tions required  nothing  more  substantial  than  notes  of 
hand  that  passed  from  one  to  the  other,  mere  prom- 
ises to  pay,  which  might  or  might  not  be  made  good 
in  the  future.  In  this  way  Lincoln  bought  the  half- 
interest  of  one  of  the  Herndon  brothers  in  their 
country  store.  Somehow,  he  was  attracted  to  mer- 
cantile pursuits.  The  business  gave  him  ample 
leisure  for  study.  Customers  were  never  too  numer- 
ous. The  store  of  a  neighboring  merchant,  one 
Radford,  had  become  offensive  to  the  Clary's  Grove 
boys,  for  some  unexplained  reason,  and  they 
promptly  wrecked  it,  staving  in  the  windows  and 
prying  out  one  corner  of  its  foundations.  Radford 
thought  it  best  to  move  from  thence,  and  he  sold  his 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  65 

stock  to  a  chance  passenger  named  Greene,  the  price 
being  two  hundred  dollars — on  paper.  Lincoln  was 
called  in  to  make  an  inventory  of  the  contents  of  the 
damaged  building,  and,  being  fascinated  with  the 
possibilities  of  the  stock,  he  offered  two  hundred 
and  fifty  dollars  for  the  lot.  Greene  gladly  accepted 
.  the  proposition,  and  gave  full  possession  of  the  es- 
tablishment to  Lincoln,  making  fifty  dollars  on  his 
bargain — also  on  paper.  For  not  a  cent  of  hard 
money  changed  hands,  the  consideration  being,  as 
usual,  a  note  of  hand. 

In  this  venture  Lincoln  had  a  partner,  one  Berry, 
an  idle  and  dissolute  fellow,  from  whom  he  was  soon 
obliged  to  separate,  and  in  a  very  short  time  the 
enterprise,  begun  with  so  much  promise  and  so 
many  expectations,  fell  into  ruin,  and  the  goods 
were  sold  in  lots  to  suit  purchasers,  to  close  out  the 
concern.  Lincoln  was  again  on  the  world  without 
occupation,  and  loaded  down  with  debts  incurred  in 
this  latest  speculation.  The  store,  as  he  expressed 
it,  had  "winked  out,"  and  he  had  no  immediate 
recourse.  He  had  read  law  books  in  a  desultory  and 
unaided  way,  and  now  he  tackled  them  with  more 
energy  than  ever,  dimly  realizing  that  here,  at  least, 
was  a  gleam  of  leading  light  for  him.  He  borrowed 
every  book  on  law  that  he  could  find,  the  attorneys 
of  the  region  round  about  good-naturedly  lending 
him  whatever  they  had.  In  his  quest  for  informa- 
tion of  this  sort,  he  often  walked  from  New  Salem 
to  Springfield,  a  distance  of  fourteen  miles. 

He  also  bought  an  old  book  of  legal  forms,  and 
amused  himself  and  his  neighbors  with  drawing  up 


66  Abraham  Lincoln 

imaginary  deeds,  wills,  and  conveyances  in  which 
fictitious  property  was  disposed  of  at  tremendous 
prices;  this  by  way  of  practice.  But,  whenever  an 
opportunity  occurred,  the  people  went  to  "Abe 
Lincoln"  for  advice  and  assistance  in  the  selling  or 
mortgaging  of  real  estate,  and  thus  he  gradually 
worked  his  way  into  something  like  a  business.  His 
fees,  he  used  to  say,  were  generally  necessaries  of 
life  turned  in  to  the  family  with  whom  he  happened 
to  board.  He  also  undertook  small  cases  on  trial 
before  the  justice  of  the  peace,  and,  to  use  his  own 
figure  of  speech,  "tried  on  a  dog"  his  legal  eloquence 
and  lore.  He  was  trying  himself  in  these  paths  into 
which  he  was  to  enter  for  life  by  and  by.  And  it  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  Lincoln's  friends  and  asso- 
ciates unite  in  saying  that  he  never  undertook  a 
case  that  was  not  founded  on  justice  and  right,  and 
that  when  he  did  argue  to  a  jury,  as  he  sometimes  did, 
the  impression  was  that  he  sincerely  believed  every- 
thing he  said.  He  was  making  reputation,  as  well 
as  preparing  himself  for  work  in  his  destined  field. 
And,  in  the  matter  of  counsel,  he  was,  as  well  as  in 
more  violent  quarrels  and  disputes,  "everybody's 
friend."  About  this  time,  too,  that  is  to  say,  in 
1833,  he  undertook  the  study  of  surveying,  and,  as  in 
other  undertakings,  he  succeeded  so  well  that  he  soon 
became  an  expert.  His  instruments  were  few  and 
simple ;  contemporaries  have  said  that  his  first  chain 
was  a  grape-vine.  But  maps  and  plots  of  land 
surveyed  by  Lincoln,  still  extant,  show  a  neatness 
and  semblance  of  accuracy  that  testify  to  the  rigid 
care  that  he  always  exercised  in  all  his  work,  Mr. 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  67 

John  Calhoun,  county  surveyor,  was  at  this  period 
a  useful  friend  to  young  Lincoln.  The  region  round 
about  was  full  of  mushroom  cities  springing  up  in  a 
day;  they  had  to  be  surveyed  in  order  that  their 
fortunate  owners  could  describe  to  the  guileless  new 
arrivals  the  location  of  streets,  public  squares,  and 
other  features  of  future  magnificence  laid  down — on 
paper.  Lincoln  became  an  assistant  to.  Calhoun, 
and,  when  occasion  required,  was  a  surveyor  "on 
his  own  hook." 

In  May,  1833,  Andrew  Jackson  being  President, 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  appointed  postmaster  of  New 
Salem.  The  office  had  very  small  revenues  and  no 
political  importance.  It  was  given  to  Lincoln  be- 
cause all  his  neighbors  wanted  him  to  have  it,  and 
he  was  the  only  man  willing  to  take  it  and  able  to 
make  out  the  necessary  returns  to  the  post-office 
department.  The  mail  was  light,  and  Lincoln,  as 
tradition  runs,  generally  carried  the  post-office  in 
his  hat.  He  could  not  keep  at  home,  of  course,  and 
when  a  villager  met  him  and  asked  if  there  were 
letters  for  him,  the  postmaster  gravely  searched 
through  his  hat  for  an  answer.  But  there  were  news- 
papers brought  to  New  Salem  by  this  weekly  mail, 
and  Lincoln  religiously  made  it  his  duty  to  read 
them  all  before  they  could  be  called  for;  this,  he 
used  to  say,  made  the  office  worth  more  to  him  than 
many  times  the  amount  of  the  money  income  could 
have  been.  In  course  of  time,  the  population  of 
New  Salem  migrated  to  other  and  more  promising 
localities,  and  the  post-office  was  discontinued.  In 
later  years,  an  agent  of  the  Post-office  Department 


68  Abraham  Lincoln 

hunted  up  the  ex-postmaster  and  demanded  the 
small  balance  due  to  the  government ;  the  amount 
was  seventeen  dollars  and  some  odd  cents.  His 
friend  and  neighbor  Dr.  A.  G.  Henry  happened  to 
be  present  when  the  agent  made  this  unexpected 
demand,  and,  knowing  Lincoln's  extreme  poverty, 
took  him  aside  and  offered  to  lend  him  the  sum 
required.  "Hold  on  a  minute,"  said  Lincoln,  "and 
let  's  see  how  we  come  out."  Going  to  his  sleeping- 
room,  he  brought  out  an  old  stocking  and,  untying  it, 
poured  on  the  table  the  exact  amount,  just  as  it  had 
been  paid  to  him  in  pennies  and  small  silver  pieces. 
Many  a  time  had  Lincoln  been  in  bitter  want,  many 
a  time  hard-pressed  for  money;  but  the  receipts  of 
the  little  post-office  were  to  him  a  sacred  trust  to  be 
kept  until  required  of  him. 

The  debt  incurred  by  the  "winking  out"  of  the 
store  of  Berry  and  Lincoln  pressed  upon  him.  So 
vast  did  it  seem  that  he  was  accustomed  to  speak  of 
it  as  "the  national  debt."  But,  unlike  most  na- 
tional debts,  it  was  ultimately  paid.  In  the  course 
of  business,  the  notes  that  he  and  Berry  had  given 
for  the  stock-in-trade  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  person 
who  was  more  than  usually  impatient;  for  every 
man's  credit,  in  those  days,  was  unlimited.  The 
creditor  in  this  case  seized  Lincoln's  horse,  saddle, 
and  bridle,  and  sold  them  under  a  sheriff's  execu- 
tion. One  of  Lincoln's  steadfast  friends,  Bolin 
Greene,  attended  the  sale,  from  which  Lincoln, 
greatly  cast  down  in  his  mind,  absented  himself. 
Greene  bought  the  outfit,  and,  to  Lincoln's  great 
surprise  and  relief,  gave  them  to  him  with  the  in- 


A  Plunge  into  Politics  69 

junction:  "Pay  for  them,  Abe,  when  you  get  ready, 
and  if  you  never  get  ready,  it 's  all  the  same  to  me." 
Not  long  after  this,  Bolin  Greene, — long  be  his  name 
remembered! — died,  and  Lincoln  was  asked  by  his 
townsmen  of  New  Salem  to  deliver  a  eulogy  at  his 
burial.  The  rising  young  lawyer  attempted  the 
grateful  task,  but  his  voice  failed  him.  The  tears 
ran  down  his  cheeks  as  he  rose  to  speak,  and,  over- 
come with  emotion,  he  sat  down  without  saying  a 
word.  More  eloquent  than  words,  his  tears  spoke 
his  affection  for  the  man  who  had  been  his  friend  in 
need. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    YOUNG    POLITICIAN. 

Elected  to  the  Legislature — Stump  Speaker  and  Political  Debater — 
Encounters  on  the  Stump — The  Lincoln-Stone  Protest  against 
Slavery — "The  Long  Nine" — Removal  of  the  State  Capital  to 
Springfield — Compliments  to  the  Sangamon  Chief — Lincoln  a 
Full-Fledged  Lawyer — Riding  the  Illinois  Circuit — Distinguished 
Associates  at  the  Bar — Lincoln  as  a  Harrison  Man. 

IN  1834  Lincoln  again  became  a  candidate  for  the 
Legislature.  This  was  to  be  expected.  On  the 
previous  occasion  he  had  made  what  was  a  very  good 
run,  although,  as  we  have  seen,  he  had  a  very  few 
days  in  which  to  finish  his  canvass  after  returning 
from  the  wars.  The  election  took  place  in  August, 
and,  after  a  sharp  fight,  Lincoln  was  elected.  Many 
Democrats,  we  are  told,  voted  for  him  from  purely 
personal  and  friendly  reasons,  and  he  was  sure  of  the 
united  support  of  the  Whigs.  The  four  successful 
candidates,  with  their  votes,  were  as  follows :  Lincoln, 
1376;  Dawson,  1370;  Carpenter,  1170;  Stuart, 
1164;  Lincoln  thus  leading  the  poll.  To  say  that 
Lincoln  was  elated  would  faintly  express  his  satis- 
faction over  this  great  but  not  unexpected  triumph. 
He  was  now  twenty-five  years  old,  hardy,  in  perfect 
health,  manly,  tolerably  self-possessed,  and  not 
ashamed  to  address  himself  to  the  discussion  of  any 
of  the  questions  of  the  day,  and  fully  competent  to 

70 


The  Young  Politician  71 

hold  his  own  with  the  general  run  of  debaters  on  the 
stump,  or  in  the  Legislature.  He  had  mastered  the 
elementary  law-books,  was  familiar  with  legal  phrases 
and  forms,  knew  every  rod  of  the  country  roundabout 
the  region  from  which  he  was  a  representative,  and, 
above  all,  knew  the  people,  their  wants,  their  hopes, 
fears,  aspirations,  habits,  and  manner  of  life.  With 
a  few  books  he  was  on  the  most  intimate  terms. 
These  were  the  Bible,  Shakespeare,  Burns,  JEsop  and 
The  Pilgrim's  Progress.  He  was  honest,  truthful, 
kind-hearted,  patient,  long-suffering,  brave,  and 
tender.  Without  forming  his  literary  style  on  any 
model,  indeed  scarcely  even  thinking  of  style,  he  had 
insensibly  acquired  a  method  of  expressing  himself, 
both  in  reading  and  writing,  which  may  well  serve 
as  an  example  for  the  youth  of  to-day.  He  used 
only  words  of  one  syllable,  where  that  was  practi- 
cable, and,  instead  of  diluting  his  thoughts  with 
many  words,  he  went  straight  to  the  point,  concisely 
and 'without  any  delay.  He  was  awkward  in  ap- 
pearance, diffident,  and,  while  not  unduly  distrustful 
of  himself,  always  preferred  another  before  him- 
self, and  ever  showed  himself  ready  to  give  place  to 
others.  Above  all,  and  to  the  latest  day  of  his  life, 
Lincoln  was  not  ashamed  to  confess  his  ignorance  of 
any  subject;  he  never  lost  an  opportunity  to  get 
instruction. 

The  capital  of  Illinois  was  then  at  Vandalia.  The 
Legislature  was  made  up  of  men  who,  like  Lincoln, 
had  been  selected  from  their  fellows  by  friends  and 
neighbors,  chiefly  for  personal  reasons,  and  by  the 
free  suffrages  of  the  voters.  What  are  now  known 


72  Abraham  Lincoln 

as  machine  politics,  in  which  corrupt  and  selfish 
party  interests  are  concerned,  were  unknown  in 
those  primitive  days.  The  members  came  together, 
passed  the  laws  thought  most  needful  for  the  people, 
and  then  went  home.  Clad  in  a  suit  of  decent  but 
not  especially  elegant  blue  jeans,  Lincoln,  with  his 
commanding  height,  was  a  marked  figure  in  the 
Legislature.  But  we  do  not  learn  that  he  was  re- 
markable for  anything  else  but  his  height,  then  six 
feet  and  four  inches.  If  he  created  any  impression 
otherwise,  it  was  when,  the  day's  session  over,  he 
tilted  his  chair  back  in  some  place  where  the  budding 
statesmen  chiefly  congregated,  and  entertained  them 
with  stories  of  which  the  repute  has  lasted  long. 
But  the  tall  young  backwoodsman,  now  passing  into 
the  era  of  statesmanship,  was  keenly  alive  to  all  that 
was  going  on.  He  held  his  place  in  the  legislative 
debates,  but  he  listened  to  others.  He  introduced 
few  bills,  but  he  narrowly  observed  what  other  men 
were  doing  in  this  direction ;  and,  while  he  said  little, 
he  took  in  everything  and  thought  a  great  deal. 
The  session  of  that  winter  was  not  lost  to  him. 

Next  year  he  was  again  nominated  for  the  Legisla- 
ture and  was  again  elected,  this  time  receiving,  as  in 
1834,  the  largest  vote  of  any  candidate  voted  for  in 
the  region.  In  his  appeal  to  the  voters,  that  year, 
Lincoln  said:  "I  go  for  all  sharing  the  privileges  of 
the  government  who  assist  in  bearing  its  burdens. 
Consequently,  I  go  for  admitting  all  whites  to  the 
right  of  suffrage  who  pay  taxes  or  bear  arms  (by  no 
means  excluding  females)."  And  again:  "Whether 
elected  or  not,  I  go  for  distributing  the  proceeds  of 


The  Young  Politician  73 

the  sales  of  the  public  lands  to  the  several  States,  to 
enable  our  State,  in  common  with  other  States,  to 
dig  canals  and  construct  railroads  without  borrowing 
money  and  paying  interest  on  it."  At  that  time 
there  were  two  great  questions  before  the  people: 
one  was  the  right  to  vote  of  persons  not  born  in  the 
United  States ;  and  the  other  was  the  policy  of  mak- 
ing public  improvements,  such  as  those  named  by 
Lincoln,  at  public  expense.  Henry  Clay  was  Lin- 
coln's model  and  example  in  politics.  And,  in  tak- 
ing a  broad  and  liberal  view  on  these  two  leading 
questions,  Lincoln  was  not  only  most  outspoken  and 
resolute,  but  he  was  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
great  Whig  chief.  Nevertheless,  many  of  Lincoln's 
friends  were  amazed  at  the  audacity  and  seemingly 
needless  courage  of  the  young  candidate  for  legisla- 
tive honors. 

During  his  canvass,  Lincoln  made  additions  to  his 
reputation  for  ready  wit  and  humor.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  was  pitted  against  George  Forquer,  who, 
from  being  a  leading  Whig,  had  become  a  bitter 
"whole-hog  Jackson  man,"  and  had  been  rewarded 
for  his  apostasy  with  a  good  office.  Forquer  was  not 
a  candidate  in  this  canvass,  but  was  called  in  to 
"boom"  the  Democratic  nominee  against  Lincoln. 
Riding  into  Springfield,  where  the  meeting  was  to  be 
held,  Lincoln's  attention  was  drawn  to  Forquer's 
fine  house,  on  which  was  a  lightning-rod,  then  a 
great  novelty  in  those  parts.  Lincoln  had  been 
allotted  to  close  the  debate,  and  Forquer,  who  spoke 
next  before  him,  devoted  himself  to  "taking  down" 
the  young  man  from  New  Salem.  He  ridiculed  his 


74  Abraham  Lincoln 

dress,  manners,  and  rough  personal  appearance,  and, 
with  much  pomposity,  derided  him  as  an  uncouth 
youngster.  Lincoln,  on  rising  to  reply,  stood  for  a 
moment  with  flashing  eyes  and  pale  cheeks,  betray- 
ing his  inward  but  unspoken  wrath.  He  began  by 
answering  very  briefly  this  ungenerous  attack.  He 
said: 

"  I  am  not  so  young  in  years  as  I  am  in  the  tricks  and 
the  trades  of  a  politician ;  but,  live  long  or  die  young,  I 
would  rather  die  now,  than,  like  that  gentleman,  change 
my  politics,  and  with  the  change  receive  an  office  worth 
three  thousand  dollars  a  year,  and  then  feel  obliged  to 
erect  a  lightning-rod  over  my  house  to  protect  a  guilty 
conscience  from  an  offended  God." 

The  effect  upon  the  simple  audience,  gathered  there 
in  the  open  air,  was  electrical.  Here  was  a  pompous 
and  vain-glorious  man,  who,  as  the  settlers  thought, 
could  not  sleep  in  his  fine  house,  compared  with 
which  their  rude  cabins  were  poor  indeed,  without 
setting  up  this  unusual  and  heaven-defying  instru- 
ment. When  Forquer  rose  to  speak,  later  on  in  the 
canvass,  and  in  other  years,  people  said:  "That  's 
the  man  who  dared  not  sleep  in  his  own  house  with- 
out a  lightning-rod  to  keep  off  the  vengeance  of  the 
Almighty." 

At  another  time,  Lincoln  met  on  the  stump  Colonel 
Richard  Taylor,  a  self -conceited  and  dandified  man, 
who  wore  a  gold  chain,  ruffled  shirt,  and  other  adorn- 
ments to  which  the  men  of  southern  Illinois  were 
quite  unaccustomed.  It  was  the  business  of  the 
Democrats  to  rate  themselves  as  the  hard-working 


The  Young  Politician  75 

bone  and  sinew  of  the  land,  while  the  Whigs  were 
stigmatized  as  aristocrats,  ruffled-shirted  gentry. 
This  was  Colonel  Taylor's  role,  and  he  spoke  with 
his  finery  concealed  under  a  long  surtout.  But, 
making  a  sweeping  gesture,  Taylor's  surtout  became 
torn  open,  and  his  gorgeous  array  of  chains,  seals, 
pendants,  and  ruffles  burst  forth,  to  his  manifest  dis- 
may. While  he  paused  in  embarrassment,  Lincoln 
seized  upon  the  opportunity,  and,  standing  in  full 
view,  with  his  coarse  attire  and  rough  appearance 
strongly  contrasting  with  the  dandified  Colonel, 
cried,  laying  his  hand  on  his  jeans-clad  breast: 
"Here  is  your  aristocrat,  one  of  your  silk-stocking 
gentry,  at  your  service."  Then,  spreading  out  his 
hands,  bronzed  and  gaunt  with  toil:  "Here  is  your 
rag-baron  with  lily-white  hands.  Yes,  I  suppose, 
according  to  my  friend  Taylor,  I  am  a  bloated 
aristocrat! "  It  was  a  long  time  before  the  amiable 
Colonel  Taylor  heard  the  last  of  that  exposure  and 
humiliation. 

In  the  Legislature  to  which  Lincoln  was  now 
elected  were  not  a  few  men  whom  we  shall  meet  later 
on  in  this  strange,  eventful  history.  One  of  these 
was  Edward  D.  Baker,  a  wonderful  orator,  after- 
wards Lincoln's  associate  in  the  law,  and  subse- 
quently United  States  Senator  from  Oregon,  a  general 
in  the  army,  and  killed  at  Ball's  Bluff.  Another 
was  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas;  others  were  John  J. 
Hardin,  James  Shields,  William  A.  Richardson,  John 
Logan,  and  John  A.  McClernand.  From  Sangamon 
County  there  were  two  senators  and  seven  repre- 
sentatives in  the  House,  nine  in  all,  and  each  man 


76  Abraham  Lincoln 

very  tall,  Lincoln  being  the  tallest  of  the  nine,  and 
familiarly  known  as  "the  Sangamon  chief,"  more  on 
account  of  his  height  than  from  his  mental  leader- 
ship. The  combined  height  of  this  tall  delegation 
was  fifty-five  feet.  No  wonder  that  it  was  popularly 
known  as  "the  Long  Nine."  One  of  the  most  not- 
able achievements  of  Sangamon  County's  "Long 
Nine"  that  winter  was  the  removal  of  the  capital  of 
the  State  from  Vandalia,  Macon  County,  to  Spring- 
field, Sangamon  County,  a  triumph  for  which 
Lincoln  received  generous  credit  from  his  admiring 
colleagues  of  the  delegation. 

At  this  session,  too,  Lincoln  put  himself  on  record 
for  the  first  time  as  opposed  to  the  further  extension 
of  the  American  system  of  human  slavery.  The 
temper  of  the  times,  at  least  in  that  region,  was 
favorable  to  slavery.  Illinois  and  Indiana  were 
affected  by  the  proslavery  influences  of  their  nearest 
neighbors,  Kentucky  and  Missouri,  rivals  in  trade 
and  commerce.  The  legislation  of  these  two  States 
was  designed  to  encourage  slaveholding  in  the  slave- 
holding  States  and  discourage  all  antislavery  agita- 
tion in  non-slaveholding  States.  For  at  that  time 
a  few  bold  men  had  begun  to  teach  that  slavery  was 
wrong,  unjustifiable,  even  wicked.  •  The  entrance  of 
free  colored  people  into  Illinois  was  forbidden  by 
statute,  and  the  infamous  "black  laws,"  long  remem- 
bered with  shame  as  designed  to  curry  favor  with 
slaveholding  neighbors  across  the  border,  were 
enacted.  Certain  resolutions  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  were  passed  by  the  Illinois  Legislature  dur- 
ing the  session  of  which  we  are  writing;  what  they 


The  Young  Politician  77 

were,  we  cannot  tell,  for  they  have  vanished  into 
oblivion;  but  undoubtedly  they  were  intended  to 
convince  slaveholding  customers  and  traders  that 
Illinois  could  be  relied  upon  to  stem  the  rising  tide 
of  ant isla very  in  the  North.  As  their  answer  to 
these  utterances,  Abraham  Lincoln  and  Dan  Stone, 
the  only  men  who  dared  to  put  themselves  on 
record  in  this  way,  drew  up  and  signed  the  following 
paper: 

"MARCH  3,  1837. 

"Resolutions  upon  the  subject  of  domestic  slavery 
having  passed  both  branches  of  the  General  Assembly 
at  its  present  session,  the  undersigned  hereby  protest 
against  the  passage  of  the  same. 

"  They  believe  that  the  institution  of  slavery  is  founded 
on  both  injustice  and  bad  policy,  but  that  the  promulga- 
tion of  abolition  doctrines  tends  rather  to  increase  than 
abate  its  evils. 

"They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
has  no  power  under  the  Constitution  to  interfere  with  the 
institution  of  slavery  in  the  different  States. 

"They  believe  that  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
has  the  power,  under  the  Constitution,  to  abolish  slavery 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  but  that  the  power  ought  not 
to  be  exercised,  unless  at  the  request  of  the  people  of  the 
District. 

"  The  difference  between  these  opinions  and  those  con- 
tained in  the  above  resolutions  is  their  reason  for  entering 
this  protest. 

(Signed)  "  DAN  STONE, 

"A.  LINCOLN, 
"Representatives  from  the  county  of  Sangamon." 


78  Abraham  Lincoln 

This  protest  was  received  and  ordered  to  be  spread 
on  the  journals  of  the  House,  much  to  the  regret 
of  some  of  Lincoln's  more  timorous  friends,  who 
probably  did  not  believe  that  slavery  could  pass 
away  from  the  face  of  the  land  during  the  time  of  any 
then  living.  At  this  late  day,  the  paper  reads  like  a 
very  harmless  and  even  over-cautious  document. 
But  it  was,  for  those  times,  a  bold  and  dangerous 
thing  to  say  that  the  institution  of  slavery  was 
founded  on  injustice  and  bad  policy.  Men  had  been 
mobbed  and  treated  with  violence  for  saying  no 
more  than  this,  so  intolerant  and  brutal  was  the 
spirit  of  the  slave-owning  and  slavery-defending 
class.  So  far  as  we  know,  this  was  Lincoln's  first 
blow  at  the  institution  that  was  bound  to  disappear 
before  his  life  and  work  were  ended. 

On  the  whole,  the  doings  of  Lincoln  and  the  other 
members  of  the  "Long  Nine"  were  highly  accept- 
able to  the  people  of  Sangamon  County.  The  Lin- 
coln-Stone protest  was  looked  upon  as  a  harmless 
vagary,  soon  to  be  forgotten,  and  already  over- 
shadowed by  the  greatness  of  the  feat  of  moving  the 
State  capital  to  Springfield.  The  long-limbed  group 
was  hailed  with  great  acclaim,  and  numerous  feasts 
and  festivities  were  given  in  their  honor.  Of  the 
toasts  offered  in  praise  of  "the  Sangamon  chief" 
were  these  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  those 
faroff  days  in  1837:  "Abraham  Lincoln:  he  has 
fulfilled  the  expectations  of  his  friends  and  disap- 
pointed the  hopes  of  his  enemies."  "A.  Lincoln: 
one  of  nature's  noblemen." 

In  April,   1837,  Lincoln  went  to  Springfield,  the 


The  Young  Politician  79 

new  capital  of  the  State,  where  he  established  him- 
self in  the  practice  of  law,  and  where  he  remained 
until  his  election  to  the  Presidency.  He  had  man- 
aged, crippled  though  he  was  with  "the  national 
debt,"  to  earn  a  scanty  livelihood,  and  to  keep  good 
his  credit.  But  the  new  venture  was  a  doubtful 
one,  and  he  undertook  it  with  many  misgivings.  He 
rode  into  town  on  a  borrowed  horse,  his  earthly  pos- 
sessions packed  in  a  pair  of  saddle-bags  fastened  to 
the  crupper  of  his  saddle.  Tying  the  horse  to  a  fence- 
post,  Lincoln  sought  the  store  of  his  friend  Mr. 
Joshua  F.  Speed,  formerly  of  Kentucky,  and  asked 
for  information  concerning  board  and  lodging.  He 
proposed  to  hire  a  room,  furnish  it,  and,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  "browse  around"  for  his  sustenance.  To 
his  great  dismay,  the  price  of  the  barest  necessaries 
in  the  way  of  furniture  would  be  seventeen  dollars ; 
and  Mr.  Speed  included  these  articles  in  his  pro- 
miscuous stock-in-trade. 

Lincoln  said,  sadly:  "It  is  cheap  enough,  but  I 
want  to  say  that,  cheap  as  it  is,  I  have  not  the  money 
to  pay  for  it.  But  if  you  will  credit  me  until  Christ- 
mas, and  my  experiment  here  is  a  success,  I  will  pay 
you  then.  If  I  fail,  I  will  probably  never  be  able  to 
pay  you." 

Impressed  by  Lincoln's  sadness,  Speed  replied: 
' '  I  have  a  very  large  double  bed  which  you  are  per- 
fectly welcome  to  share  with  me,  if  you  choose." 

' '  Where  is  your  bed  ? ' '     asked  Lincoln. 

"Upstairs,"  replied  Speed.  Lincoln  took  his 
saddle-bags  on  his  arm  and  went  upstairs,  set  them 
on  the  floor,  took  a  swift  survey  of  the  premises,  and 


8o  Abraham  Lincoln 

then  came  down  again,  good-humoredly  laughing, 
and  said:  "Speed,  I  am  moved."  And  Lincoln  was 
then  settled  in  his  new  quarters  with  his  steadfast 
friend  Mr.  Speed. 

The  new  capital  of  Illinois  was  a  large  village,  its 
population  being  about  eighteen  thousand.  It  was 
the  county-seat  of  Sangamon,  and  the  United  States 
Court  for  that  circuit  was  held  there.  These,  with 
the  annual  session  of  the  Legislature,  imparted  to  the 
embryo  metropolis  considerable  importance.  Men 
famous  afterwards  in  the  history  of  the  county, 
State,  and  the  republic  were  found  among  the  assem- 
blies of  the  citizens.  Some  social  grandeur  was  ap- 
parent, and  Lincoln  has  recorded  his  notion  that 
Springfield  was  putting  on  pretensions  to  elegance. 
To  the  shy  son  of  the  Kentucky  backwoods,  doubt- 
less, there  was  a  great  deal  of  "flourishing  about" 
among  the  people  of  the  capital ;  but  we  must  make 
allowance  for  the  fact  that  Springfield,  like  Lincoln, 
was  only  just  emerging  from  the  backwoods.  The 
courthouse  was  built  of  logs,  and  this  was  true  of 
nearly  all  the  courthouses  on  the  circuit.  The  judge 
sat  at  a  cloth-covered  table,  behind  a  rail  that  sepa- 
rated the  awful  majesty  of  the  bench  from  the  bar 
and  people.  The  rest  of  the  space  was  occupied  by  a 
promiscuous  crowd,  and  it  was  a  very  dull  day  when 
the  courthouse  audience  did  not  press  hardly  upon 
the  accommodations  allotted  for  clerk,  bar,  and 
official  attendants  at  the  trial.  For  the  courthouse 
afforded,  in  those  days  of  few  amusements,  almost 
the  only  in-door  entertainment  of  the  people.  Here 
they  found  tragedy,  comedy,  elocution,  contests  of 


The  Young  Politician  81 

wit  and  logic,  and  all  that  material  for  neighborhood 
gossip  that  is  needed  so  keenly  in  sparsely  settled 
communities. 

The  lawyers  rode  horseback  from  courthouse  to 
courthouse,  trying  cases  and  following  the  presiding 
judges  in  their  circuit.  Each  limb  of  the  law  carried 
with  him,  in  his  saddle-bags,  a  change  of  raiment,  a 
few  lawbooks,  and  the  articles  of  use  indispensable 
to  the  hard-faring  traveller.  Manners  were  simple, 
even  rude,  but  kindly  and  hospitable.  It  was  on 
these  long  jaunts,  travelled  in  company  with  judges, 
witnesses,  and  jurymen,  that  Lincoln  picked  up  a 
vast  proportion  of  the  stories  of  wild  Western  life 
and  manners,  that,  in  after  years,  made  him  famous 
as  an  impromptu  story-teller.  Once,  Lincoln,  hav- 
ing assisted  the  prosecuting  attorney  in  the  trial  of  a 
man  who  had  appropriated  some  of  the  tenants  of  his 
neighbor's  chicken-house,  fell  in,  next  day,  jogging 
along  the  highway,  with  the  foreman  of  the  jury  who 
had  convicted  the  hen-stealer.  The  man  compli- 
mented Lincoln  on  the  zeal  and  ability  of  the  prose- 
cution, and  remarked :  ' '  Why,  when  the  country  was 
young  and  I  was  stronger  than  I  am  now,  I  did  n't 
mind  backing  off  a  sheep  now  and  again.  But 
stealing  hens!"  The  good  man's  scorn  could  not 
find  words  to  express  his  opinion  of  a  man  who  would 
steal  hens. 

On  another  occasion,  while  riding  the  circuit  Lin- 
coln was  missed  from  the  party,  having  loitered,  ap- 
parently, near  a  thicket  of  wild  plum-trees  where 
the  cavalcade  had  stopped  to  water  their  steeds. 
One  of  the  company,  coming  up  with  the  others, 

-6. 


82  Abraham  Lincoln 

reported,  in  answer  to  questions :  ' '  When  I  saw  him 
last,  he  had  caught  two  young  birds  that  the  wind 
had  blown  out  of  their  nest,  and  was  hunting  for  the 
nest  to  put  them  back."  The  men  rallied  Lincoln  on 
his  tender-heartedness,when  he  caught  up  with  them. 
But  he  said:  "I  could  not  have  slept  unless  I  had 
restored  those  little  birds  to  their  mother." 

Lincoln  formed  a  law  partnership  with  John  T. 
Stuart,  of  Springfield,  in  April,  1837,  and  this  relation 
continued  until  April,  1841,  when  Lincoln  associated 
himself  in  business  with  Stephen  T.  Logan.  This 
partnership  was  dissolved  in  September,  1843,  when 
the  law  firm  of  Abraham  Lincoln  and  William  H. 
Herndon  was  formed,  and  this  copartnership  was 
not  dissolved  until  the  death  of  Lincoln,  in  1865. 

As  a  lawyer,  Lincoln  soon  proved  that  the  quali- 
ties that  had  won  him  the  title  of  honest  Abe  Lincoln, 
when  he  was  a  store-keeper,  still  stuck  to  him.  He 
was  an  honest  lawyer;  he  never  undertook  a  case  of 
doubtful  morality.  If  it  was  a  criminal  whom  he 
was  defending,  and  he  became  convinced  of  the  guilt 
of  the  prisoner,  he  lost  all  heart  in  the  case.  No  fee, 
no  expectation  of  winning  fame  for  his  shrewdness, 
would  induce  him  to  undertake  a  suit  in  which  it 
would  be  necessary  to  resort  to  quibbles  and  nice 
little  tricks  to  win.  Perhaps  there  was  less  of  that 
sort  of  legal  management  in  those  days  than  now. 
But  he  certainly  never  did  resort  to  it.  And,  as  those 
who  practised  at  the  bar  when  he  did  have  left  this 
record  of  him,  it  is  evident  that  he  was  thought  to  be 
peculiar,  different  from  the  rest  of  his  associates. 
There  were  men  of  ability  and  skill  in  the  circuit  in 


The  Young  Politician  83 

those  days.  Some  of  them  became  famous  in  later 
years.  Among  these  were  Lyman  Trumbull,  after- 
wards United  States  Senator  from  Illinois;  O.  H. 
Browning,  Senator,  and  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
under  Lincoln's  administration;  W.  H.  Bissell, 
Representative  in  Congress,  and  Governor  of  the 
State ;  David  Davis,  Senator,  acting  Vice-President, 
and  also  a  justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States;  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Senator,  and  a  candi- 
date for  the  Presidency.  So  far  as  we  know,  none  of 
these  men,  afterwards  eminent  in  their  time,  had  any 
expectation  of  their  future  successes  in  public  life. 
But  the  modest  Lincoln  was  in  training  for  his  ex- 
alted station :  and  it  is  worth  while  to  note  here  that 
his  associations  were  those  that  inspired  and  lifted 
him  up,  not  dragged  him  down.  It  is  likely  that  he 
regarded  those  about  him  with  a  respect  akin  to  awe 
and  that  he  never  hoped  at  that  time  to  be  equal 
to  them  in  reputation.  How  they  regarded  him,  it 
is  not  necessary  to  inquire,  except  to  know  that  no- 
body ever  thought  that  he  would,  in  time,  distance 
them  all  in  the  race  for  distinction.  He  determined 
to  excel,  not  to  outstrip  anybody;  to  do  his  best, 
leaving  the  results  to  God.  Long  after  he  had  be- 
come President,  he  said  that  the  true  rule  of  life  was 
to  do  one's  "level  best,"  leaving  the  rest  to  take  care 
of  itself.  He  believed  that  the  best  preparation  for 
the  duties  of  to-morrow  was  the  faithful  perform- 
ance of  the  duties  of  to-day. 

When  we  look  at  what  young  Lincoln  had  accom- 
plished at  the  time  of  which  we  are  writing,  we  shall 
see  that  he  had  already  begun  to  evince  great  talent, 


84  Abraham  Lincoln 

although  he  may  not  have  been  a  man  of  mark.  For 
example,  in  1837,  when  he  was  not  yet  twenty-eight 
years  old,  he  was  asked  to  deliver  a  lecture  before  an 
association  of  young  men  in  Springfield.  He  chose 
for  his  theme  "The  Perpetuation  of  our  Political  In- 
stitutions, "rather  an  ambitious  topic,  one  might  say. 
But  it  was  not  a  crude  effort.  Considering  that  it 
was  the  work  of  a  self-taught  man,  who  had  never 
seen  the  inside  of  a  college,  it  was  remarkable  as  a 
piece  of  literary  composition.  It  was  the  address  of 
a  thinking  man,  an  ardent  and  devoted  patriot.  In 
order  that  the  reader  may  have  some  notion  of  the 
earlier  beginnings  of  Lincoln's  statesmanship,  one 
extract  from  this  speech  is  subjoined.  Alluding  to 
our  Revolutionary  ancestors,  he  said: 

"  In  history,  we  hope,  they  will  be  read  of  and  recounted 
so  long  as  the  Bible  shall  be  read.  But  even  granting 
that  they  will,  their  influence  cannot  be  what  it  heretofore 
has  been.  Even  then,  they  cannot  be  so  universally 
known  nor  so  vividly  felt  as  they  were  by  the  generation 
just  gone  to  rest.  At  the  close  of  that  struggle,  nearly 
every  adult  male  had  been  a  participator  in  some  of  its 
scenes. 

"The  consequence  was,  that  of  those  scenes,  in  the 
form  of  a  husband,  a  father,  a  son,  or  a  brother,  a  living 
history  was  to  be  found  in  every  family — a  history  bearing 
the  indubitable  testimonies  to  its  own  authenticity  in  the 
limbs  mangled,  in  the  scars  of  wounds  received  in  the 
midst  of  the  very  scene  related ;  a  history,  too,  that  could 
be  read  and  understood  alike  by  all,  the  wise  and  the 
ignorant,  the  learned  and  the  unlearned.  But  those 
histories  are  gone.  They  can  be  read  no  more  forever. 
They  were  a  fortress  of  strength ;  but  what  the  invading 


The  Young  Politician  85 

foeman  could  never  do,  the  silent  artillery  of  that  time  has 
done — the  levelling  of  its  walls.  They  are  gone.  They 
were  a  forest  of  giant  oaks;  but  the  resistless  hurricane 
has  swept  over  them  and  left  only  here  and  there  a  lonely 
trunk  despoiled  of  its  verdure,  shorn  of  its  foliage,  un- 
shading  and  unshaded,  to  murmur  in  a  few  more  gentle 
breezes  and  to  combat  with  its  mutilated  limbs  a  few 
more  ruder  storms,  then  to  sink  and  be  no  more." 

A  little  later,  in  1839,  there  was  a  remarkable 
debate  in  the  Illinois  Legislature,  in  which  the  Demo- 
cratic disputants  were  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  John 
Calhoun,  Josiah  Lamborn,  and  Jesse  B.  Thomas. 
The  Whig  speakers  were  Stephen  T.  Logan,  Edward 
D.  Baker,  Orville  H.  Browning,  and  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. All  of  these  men  were  conspicuous  figures  in 
Illinois  politics,  and  most  of  them  became  celebrated 
throughout  the  country  in  after  years.  During  the 
debate,  one  of  the  speakers  taunted  the  other  side 
with  the  hopelessness  of  their  cause  and  the  fewness 
of  their  numbers.  In  replying  to  him,  Lincoln  said: 
"Address  that  argument  to  cowards  and  knaves. 
With  the  free  and  the  brave  it  will  effect  nothing.  It 
may  be  true;  if  it  must,  let  it.  Many  free  countries 
have  lost  their  liberty,  and  ours  may  lose  hers;  but, 
if  she  shall,  let  it  be  my  proudest  plume,  not  that  I 
was  the  last  to  desert,  but  that  I  never  deserted  her." 

Martin  Van  Buren  was  then  President,  and  all  who 
opposed  his  administration  were  denounced  and  per- 
secuted with  a  virulence  unknown  in  these  more 
liberal  days.  Alluding  to  this  Lincoln  said :  ' '  Bow  to 
it  I  never  will.  Here,  before  heaven,  and  in  the  face 
of  the  world,  I  swear  eternal  fidelity  to  the  just  cause 


86  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  the  land  of  my  life,  my  liberty,  and  my  love. 
,  .  .  The  cause  approved  of  by  our  judgment  and 
our  hearts,  in  disaster,  in  chains,  in  death,  we  never 
faltered  in  defending." 

In  1840,  the  country  was  deeply  stirred  by  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  that  year.  Martin  Van 
Buren  was  nominated  by  the  Democrats,  and  General 
William  H.  Harrison  by  the  Whigs.  Lincoln  was  one 
of  the  Presidential  electors  on  the  Harrison  ticket, 
and  he  took  a  lively  interest  in  the  canvass,  making 
speeches  and  going  on  long  expeditions  for  the  sake 
of  his  candidate.  Harrison  lived  in  Ohio,  where  he 
had  been  one  of  the  earlier  pioneers.  The  dwelling 
of  the  pioneer,  of  course,  was  a  log  cabin;  his 
favorite  drink  was  supposed  to  be  "hard"  or  sour, 
fermented  apple  cider.  In  a  very  short  time  the 
Harrison  campaign  became  "the  log-cabin  and  hard- 
cider  campaign."  Even  in  the  staid,  old-fashioned 
cities  and  towns  of  the  Eastern  States,  log  cabins 
were  built  for  rally  ing-places.  Barrels  of  hard  cider 
were  kept  on  tap,  and,  instead  of  the  customary  tin 
cup  for  drinking  purposes,  gourds  were  ostentatious- 
ly hung  out.  Coon-skins  were  nailed  on  the  outer 
walls  of  these  symbolic  log  cabins.  In  some  places 
extravagant  expedients  were  resorted  to  in  order  to 
rouse  public  enthusiasm.  In  Boston,  for  example, 
a  huge  ball  was  made  by  covering  a  wood  frame- 
work, some  fifty  feet  in  circumference,  with  painted 
cloth;  and  on  the  ends  was  lettered  the  legend, 
"This  is  the  ball  that  is  rolling  on."  The  novel 
device  was  rolled  through  the  streets  of  the  city,  on 
the  occasion  of  a  log-cabin  parade,  the  big  ball  being 


The  Young  Politician  87 

guided  by  ropes  hitched  to  its  axis.  Campaign 
songsters,  flags,  and  all  sorts  of  inventions  to  stir  up 
the  people,  were  scattered  broadcast  all  over  the 
country. 

Lincoln  threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  this 
extraordinary  and  memorable  canvass.  At  a  great 
meeting  in  Springfield,  Edward  Baker,  Lincoln's 
close  friend,  was  speaking  in  a  large  room  next  below 
the  floor  on  which  Lincoln's  office  was.  A  trap-door, 
once  used  for  ventilating  purposes,  was  cut  in  the 
ceiling  over  the  spot  where  the  speaker  stood. 
Lincoln  raised  this  slightly  and  listened  to  Baker's 
harangue.  Presently,  Baker,  losing  his  temper, 
assailed  the  Democrats  very  hotly,  and,  as  some  of 
these  were  present,  they  made  a  rush  for  the  speaker, 
crying:  "Pull  him  off  the  platform!"  To  their 
intense  surprise,  the  trap-door  was  lifted,  and  Lin- 
coln's large  feet,  well  known  by  their  proportions, 
appeared;  then  his  legs,  and  finally  his  body,  slid 
down,  and  the  tall  son  of  the  backwoods  stood 
defiantly  by  the  side  of  Baker.  Quieting  the  rising 
tide  by  a  wave  of  his  hand,  Lincoln  said:  "Gentle- 
men, let  us  not  disgrace  the  age  and  country  in  which 
we  live.  This  is  a  land  where  freedom  of  speech  is 
guaranteed.  Baker  has  a  right  to  speak,  and  a  right 
to  be  permitted  to  do  so.  I  am  here  to  protect  him, 
and  no  man  shall  take  him  from  this  stand  if  I  can 
prevent  it."  Lincoln  had  sufficient  reputation  for 
courage  and  muscle,  as  well  as  for  fairness,  to  warrant 
that  Baker  should  have  no  further  interruption. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WINNING    HIS    WAY. 

His  First  Love  Affair — A  Disappointment — Dark  Days — The  Lincoln- 
Shields  "Duel" — Good  Advice  on  the  Subject  of  Quarrelling — 
Lincoln  and  Van  Buren — A  Roadside  Symposium — Congressional 
Expectations. 

WHILE  Lincoln  was  living  in  New  Salem,  he 
became  tenderly  attached  to  a  young  lady  of 
that  village,  Miss  Ann  Rutledge.  It  is  not  known 
that  the  pair  were  ever  engaged  to  be  married,  but  it 
is  known  that  a  very  cordial  affection  existed  between 
the  twain.  At  that  time,  Lincoln,  who  was  ever 
looking  on  the  dark  and  practical  side  of  life,  was  in 
no  condition  to  marry;  he  was  not  only  poor,  but 
was  burdened  with  debts,  and  with  a  very  uncertain 
future  before  him.  It  is  hardly  likely  that  he  would 
have  engaged  himself  to  marry  while  his  prospects 
in  life  were  so  very  dim  and  discouraging.  But  Miss 
Rutledge  died  suddenly,  and  while  yet  in  the  bloom 
of  youth.  This  sad  event  impressed  Lincoln  with  the 
deepest  melancholy,  and  it  is  said  that  he  never  was 
as  cheerful  afterwards.  To  the  day  of  his  death,  it  is 
likely,  the  taking  out  of  life  of  Ann  Rutledge,  who 
seems  to  have  been  cut  down  most  untimely,  was 
to  Lincoln  a  forcible  lesson  of  the  vanity  of  human 

88 


Winning  His  Way  89 

expectations.  It  was  at  this  time,  so  far  as  we  know, 
that  an  old  poem,  beginning  with  the  line — 

"Oh,  why  should  the  spirit  of  mortal  be  proud?" 

greatly  impressed  him  with  its  sadness  and  pathetic 
reminders  of  death,  decay,  and  disappointment. 
The  poem  stink  insensibly  into  his  memory,  and  it 
was  a  favorite  with  him  ever  after. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Lincoln  was  ever  what  is 
called  "a  lady's  man."  He  delighted  in  the  society 
and  conversation  of  cultivated  and  sprightly  women, 
always,  but  he  was  not  greatly  addicted  to  such 
society  when  a  young  man  making  his  way  in  the 
world.  He  was  obliged  to  live  laborious  days,  and 
sit  up  far  into  the  night  pursuing  his  studies,  his 
reading,  his  course  of  thought.  But  in  1840  there 
came  to  Springfield  from  Kentucky  his  destiny  in 
the  person  of  Miss  Mary  Todd.  She  was  a  daughter 
of  Robert  Todd.  It  was  one  of  her  relatives,  John 
Todd,  who  gave  name  to  Lexington,  Kentucky. 
When,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the  Revolution,  John 
Todd  was  encamped  hard  by  the  site  of  the  present 
city,  he  heard  from  the  far  East  the  news  of  the  battle 
of  Lexington,  and  he  bestowed  on  the  settlement  yet 
unborn  the  title  it  wears  unto  this  day.  The  Todd 
family  was  one  of  ancient  and  honorable  standing 
in  Kentucky.  Mary  Todd's  sister  was  the  wife  of 
Ninian  W.  Edwards,  a  man  of  substance  in  Spring- 
field, and  it  was  to  visit  her  that  Miss  Todd  had 
reached  the  Illinois  capital. 

Mary  Todd  was  courted  and  flattered  by  the  young 
men  of  Springfield,  and  as  the  young  ladies  of  those 


90  Abraham  Lincoln 

days  were  more  interested  in  politics  than  many  of 
the  present  age,  she  soon  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  then  regarded  as  a  rising  man. 
It  will  never  be  known  just  how  a  matrimonial 
engagement  between  Lincoln  and  Miss  Todd  became 
settled  and  then  unsettled.  It  may  be  sufficient  for  us 
to  know  that  after  the  engagement  was  fixed  there 
was  a  misunderstanding  betwixt  the  two,  and  that 
Lincoln  released  the  young  lady  from  the  engage- 
ment, and  that  she  declined  to  be  released.  Im- 
mediately after,  he  fell  into  a  state  of  the  most 
profound  melancholy.  He  was  tortured  with  the 
idea  that  he  might  have  been  bound  by  other 
obligations,  or  that  he  was  not  wholly  a  free  man. 
Certain  it  is  that  he  was  so  affected  by  what  seems  to 
have  been  a  needless  remorse,  that  his  mind  was  in 
danger  of  being  unsettled.  In  this  pitiable  plight, 
his  friend  Joshua  F.  Speed,  who  had  closed  out  his 
business  in  Springfield,  returned  to  Kentucky,  taking 
Lincoln  with  him.  There,  in  the  restful  quiet  of  the 
Speed  mansion,  Lincoln  recovered  his  mental  health 
and  vigor,  and  then  returned  to  Springfield. 

At  that  time  a  well-known  character  in  the  city 
was  James  Shields,  a  brisk  and  hot-headed  young 
man  from  the  County  Tyrone,  Ireland.  Shields  was 
an  active  Democrat,  ever  dipping  into  all  sorts  of 
adventures,  and  he  had  lately  been  elected  State 
Auditor,  an  office  of  some  importance,  with  a  good 
income  attached  to  it.  Lincoln  anonymously  printed 
in  the  Sangamon  Journal  a  witty  letter  purporting  to 
come  from  "The  Lost  Townships,"  in  which  the 
writer,  who  pretended  to  be  a  widow  with  political 


Winning  His  Way  91 

ideas  in  her  head,  bewailed  the  hard  times  and  the 
evil  results  of  Democratic  rule.  In  that  letter  some 
satirical  allusions  were  made  to  the  heady  young 
Democratic  Auditor,  who  was  a  fair  mark  for 
ridicule,  as  he  was  most  sensitive,  as  well  as  of  a 
fiery  disposition.  Shields  was  frantic  with  rage.  He 
vapored  through  the  town,  threatening  death  and 
destruction  to  the  unknown  author  of  the  satire. 
The  shot  was  followed  by  another,  in  which  the 
widow  of  "The  Lost  Townships"  offered  to  square 
matters  by  marrying  Shields.  These  two  letters, 
which  were  the  talk  of  the  town,  so  tickled  the  fancy- 
of  Miss  Todd  and  another  young  lady  that  they  con- 
cocted a  series  of  lampoons,  verses,  and  skits,  all  of 
which,  like  the  little  barbed  weapons  flung  by  a  bull- 
fighter, were  designed  to  infuriate  the  rearing  and 
plunging  Shields.  In  a  rage,  he  went  to  the  editor 
of  the  journal,  and  demanded  to  know  the  name  of 
the  author  of  these  attacks.  The  editor,  in  great 
distress  of  mind,  applied  to  Lincoln  for  advice. 
Shields  would  fight.  The  editor  would  not  fight. 
Lincoln  told  him  to  say  that  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
responsible  for  the  whole  business  from  first  to  last. 
Being  so  informed,  Shields  challenged  Lincoln  to 
mortal  combat.  Lincoln  accepted. 

In  those  days,  and  in  those  regions,  duelling  was 
not  only  common,  but  it  was  very  highly  thought  of 
as  a  means  of  setting  a  man  right  when  his  honor 
had  been  assailed  before  the  community.  It  seems 
strange,  now,  to  think  that  Lincoln  could  have 
accepted  a  challenge  to  fight  a  duel.  But  it  was  the 
custom  of  the  country,  although  contrary  to  the 


92  Abraham  Lincoln 

laws.  And  perhaps  Lincoln  felt  that  there  would  be 
no  duel.  Shields  was  a  famous  boaster.  He  and 
his  friends  made  great  ado  about  the  coming  duel,  so 
that  the  affair  was  very  widely  advertised.  Lincoln, 
being  the  challenged  party,  had  the  choice  of  weapons 
and  he  chose  "cavalry  broadswords  of  the  largest 
size."  If  he  had  really  desired  to  hew  down  Shields, 
he  might  have  done  so,  for,  in  his  stout  hands  and 
with  his  long  arms,  he  could  have  mowed  down  any 
man  of  ordinary  build  before  he  could  have  got  near 
Lincoln.  But  the  fight  did  not  come  off.  At  the 
last  moment,  Shields  was  ready  to  accept  from 
Lincoln  the  explanation  that  the  letters  from  "The 
Lost  Townships"  were  only  intended  for  political 
effect  and  not  to  reflect  on  the  personal  character  of 
Mr.  Shields.  Lincoln  was  no  wrangler,  and  it  is 
very  likely  that  he  was  greatly  disturbed  by  this 
unseemly  quarrel,  the  first  and  the  last  of  the  sort 
that  he  ever  had;  and,  if  he  could  have  escaped  from 
the  duel  without  degradation,  he  would  have  done  so. 
It  ended  without  humiliation  to  him  except  so  far  as 
he  felt  humbled  by  having  been  drawn  into  a  silly 
fracas  in  which  nobody  could  gain  any  credit  to  him- 
self. Curiously  enough,  the  seconds  in  this  bloodless 
affair  fell  into  a  wordy  quarrel,  and  a  vigorous  cor- 
respondence, which  at  one  time  threatened  to  result 
in  a  real  duel,  was  kept  up  for  several  weeks  after  the 
famous  "Lincoln  and  Shields  duel"  was  declared 
"off."  But  nothing  serious  came  of  this  after-clap. 
Years  after,  when  he  was  President  of  the  republic, 
Lincoln  had  occasion  to  reprimand  a  young  officer 
of  the  army  who  had  been  brought  before  a  court- 


Winning  His  Way  93 

martial  for  a  quarrel  with  a  brother  officer.  Pos- 
sibly, these  words,  addressed  to  the  culprit,  may 
have  been  suggested  by  his  own  unwelcome  ex- 
perience : 

"  The  advice  of  a  father  to  his  son,  *  Beware  of  entrance 
to  a  quarrel,  but  being  in,  bear  it  that  the  opposed  may 
beware  of  thee,'  is  good,  but  not  the  best.  Quarrel  not 
at  all.  No  man  resolved  to  make  the  most  of  himself  can 
spare  time  for  personal  contention.  Still  less  can  he 
afford  to  take  all  the  consequences,  including  the  vitiating 
of  his  temper  and  the  loss  of  self-control.  Yield  larger 
things  to  which  you  can  show  no  more  than  equal  right ; 
and  yield  lesser  ones  though  clearly  your  own.  Better 
give  your  path  to  a  dog  than  be  bitten  by  him  in  con- 
testing for  the  right.  Even  killing  the  dog  would  not 
cure  the  bite." 

But  out  of  the  Shields  affair,  we  may  understand, 
issued  the  marriage  of  Lincoln  and  Miss  Todd.  The 
young  lady  was  bright,  vivacious,  and  roguish.  Her 
knight  had  shown  his  readiness  to  fight  for  her, 
although,  with  genuine  Kentucky  spirit,  she  had 
declared  her  own  willingness  to  cross  weapons  with 
the  redoubtable  young  Irishman,  if  need  be.  The 
paper  duel  took  place  late  in  September;  the  young 
couple  were  married  November  4,  1840.  The  newly 
married  pair  took  lodgings  in  the  Globe  Tavern,  a 
well-known  and  modest  boarding-place  not  far  from 
the  statehouse.  In  a  letter  written  to  a  friend, 
about  this  time,  Lincoln  speaks  of  his  happiness  in 
the  married  state,  of  his  comforts,  and  of  the  cheap- 
ness of  their  living,  which,  he  says,  "is  only  four 
dollars  a  week  for  board  and  lodging."  On  these 


94  Abraham  Lincoln 

modest  terms  did  the  future  President  begin  married 
life.  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  indeed  a  helpmate.  Her  good 
management  and  thoughtfulness  admirably  supple- 
mented her  husband's  unworldly  absent-mindedness. 
They  were  always  what  some  people  call  "an  old- 
fashioned  couple,"  content  with  each  other,  a  devoted 
husband  and  wife,  to  the  end  of  their  life  together. 

To  Lincoln's  inexpressible  satisfaction,  Harrison 
was  elected  in  1840.  The  hard-cider  and  log-cabin 
campaign  was  not  fought  through,  however,  without 
many  a  hard  struggle.  The  Democrats  were  over- 
whelmed at  last.  The  Whigs,  after  their  long  ex- 
clusion from  power,  were  correspondingly  elated.  It 
was  during  this  canvass  that  the  old  term  of  derision 
"Locofoco"  was  again  applied  to  the  Democrats. 
In  1834,  so  runs  the  tale,  a  party  of  Democratic 
agitators  were  assembled  in  Tammany  Hall,  New 
York,  resolved  on  some  very  high-handed  political 
measure.  The  more  moderate,  after  vainly  attempt- 
ing to  stem  the  tide,  turned  off  the  gas  all  at  once. 
In  those  days,  friction  matches  were  a  new  invention 
and  were  called  "Locofoco  matches,"  probably 
from  the  Latin  loco  foco,  in  lieu  of  fire.  Those  who 
were  in  favor  of  extreme  measures  drew  their  ' '  Loco- 
focos"  from  their  pockets,  relighted  the  gas,  and  the 
radicals  carried  their  point.  From  this,  the  term 
Locofoco  spread  all  over  the  country;  and  it  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  Mr.  Lincoln,  clinging  as  he 
did  to  old-fashioned  phrases,  frequently,  even  during 
the  Civil  War,  referred  to  Democrats  by  their  old 
name  of  Locofocos. 

The   log-cabin   campaign    having   terminated   to 


Winning  His  Way  95 

Lincoln's  satisfaction,  he  spent  the  winter  of  his  first 
year  of  marriage  very  happily,  as  well  as  very  busily. 
Yet  he  found  time  to  write  an  occasional  newspaper 
article  on  the  growing  power  of  the  political  South, 
and,  later  on,  to  compose  and  deliver  a  very  excellent 
temperance  address.  About  this  time,  too,  possibly 
this  very  winter,  he  wrote  a  lecture  for  a  lyceum, 
designed  to  show  that  there  was  nothing  new  under 
the  sun,  that  everything  that  was  claimed  as  a  new 
invention  had  existed  at  some  period,  possibly  very 
remote,  in  the  history  of  the  world.  This  lecture  was 
not  intended  to  be  taken  in  cold-blooded  earnest, 
but  as  a  bit  of  pleasantry,  mixed  with  much  sober 
fact.  The  temperance  address,  however,  was  a 
serious  composition.  Lincoln  never,  even  to  the 
day  of  his  death,  could  be  persuaded  to  partake  of 
spirits  or  wine.  He  set  out  in  life,  surrounded  by 
drunkards  and  moderate  tipplers,  determined  that 
he  would  resist  the  temptation  to  drink  of  these 
insidious  beverages.  He  made  no  promises,  but, 
after  a  few  years  of  manhood  (as  he  used  to  say), 
when  his  associates  had  become  accustomed  to  his 
abstemious  habits,  he  had  neither  temptation  nor  de- 
sire to  drink.  That  part  of  Lincoln's  lecture — which 
was  delivered  in  the  Second  Presbyterian  Church, 
Springfield,  February  22,  1842 — that  refers  to  the 
drinking  usages  of  society  is  interesting.  He  said: 

"  Let  us  see.  I  have  not  inquired  at  what  period  of 
time  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  commenced ;  nor  is  it 
important  to  know.  It  is  sufficient  that  to  all  of  us  who 
now  inhabit  the  world,  the  practice  of  drinking  them  is 
just  as  old  as  the  world  itself — that  is,  we  have  seen  the 


96  Abraham  Lincoln 

one  just  as  long  as  we  have  seen  the  other.  When  all  such 
of  us  as  have  now  reached  the  years  of  maturity  first 
opened  our  eyes  upon  the  stage  of  existence,  we  found 
intoxicating  liquor  recognized  by  everybody,  used  by 
everybody,  repudiated  by  nobody.  It  commonly  entered 
into  the  first  draught  of  the  infant,  and  the  last  draught 
of  the  dying  man.  From  the  sideboard  of  the  parson 
down  to  the  ragged  pocket  of  the  homeless  loafer,  it  was 
constantly  found.  Physicians  prescribed  it  in  this,  that, 
and  the  other  disease ;  government  provided  it  for  soldiers 
and  sailors ;  and  to  have  a  rolling  or  raising,  a  husking  or 
'hoe-down'  anywhere  about  without  it  was  positively 
insufferable.  So,  too,  it  was  everywhere  a  respectable 
article  of  manufacture  and  merchandise.  The  making  of 
it  was  regarded  as  an  honorable  livelihood,  and  he  who 
could  make  most  was  the  most  enterprising  and  respect- 
able. Large  and  small  manufactories  of  it  were  every- 
where erected,  in  which  all  the  earthly  goods  of  their 
owners  were  invested.  Wagons  drew  it  from  town  to 
town;  boats  bore  it  from  clime  to  clime,  and  the  winds 
wafted  it  from  nation  to  nation;  and  merchants  bought 
and  sold  it,  by  wholesale  and  retail,  with  precisely  the 
same  feelings,  on  the  part  of  the  seller,  buyer,  and  by- 
stander, as  are  felt  at  the  selling  and  buying  of  ploughs, 
beef,  bacon,  or  any  other  of  the  real  necessities  of  life. 
Universal  public  opinion  not  only  tolerated,  but  recog- 
nized and  adopted  its  use." 

In  June,  1842,  Lincoln  met  Martin  Van  Buren, 
then  out  of  office.  It  was  the  first  time  that  Lincoln 
had  ever  seen  the  much-hated  Democratic  ex-Presi- 
dent, and  he  was  accustomed  to  say,  in  after  years, 
that  it  was  no  wonder  that  Van  Buren's  admirers 
called  him  "the  little  magician,"  for,  according  to 


Winning  His  Way  97 

Lincoln,  Van  Buren's  manners  were  so  affable  and 
delightful  that  "he  could  charm  the  birds  off  the 
trees."  But,  if  Lincoln  was  pleased  with  Van  Buren, 
the  ex-President  was  no  less  gratified  by  his  meeting 
with  the  young  Whig  leader  of  central  Illinois. 
Being  weatherbound  at  a  small  town  not  far  from 
Springfield,  the  ex-President  was  forced  to  remain 
overnight.  Some  of  his  Springfield  friends  hearing 
of  Mr.  Van  Buren's  plight,  made  up  a  party,  and, 
taking  with  them  some  refreshments,  left  Springfield 
for  the  village  aforementioned.  Knowing  Lincoln's 
good-nature,  as  well  as  his  powers  of  entertaining, 
they  besought  his  assistance  to  lighten  the  weary 
hours  of  the  ex-President's  stay  at  the  wretched  inn 
where  he  was  detained.  Lincoln,  always  ready  to 
do  a  good  turn,  went  out  with  the  party,  and,  as  it  is 
recorded  by  one  of  the  company,  entertained  the 
wayfarers  far  into  the  night  with  Western  anecdotes, 
funny  stories,  and  graphic  descriptions  of  wild  life  on 
the  frontier.  Van  Buren  was  surprised  and  de- 
lighted, saying  that  the  only  drawback  to  his  enjoy- 
ment was  that  his  sides  were  sore,  from  laughing  at 
Lincoln's  stories,  for  a  week  thereafter.  The  Demo- 
cratic ex-President  and  the  Whig  leader  parted  on 
such  excellent  terms  that  they  ever  after  cherished 
pleasant  recollections  of  that  night. 

Lincoln  had  long  desired  to  go  to  Congress,  but  it 
so  happened  that  his  dearest  friends,  also  Whigs,  were 
equally  anxious  to  go  from  the  district  in  which  they 
all  lived.  This  was  known  as  the  Sangamon  district, 
and  from  1839  to  1850  it  was  represented  by  men  of 
marked  ability.  Edward  D.  Baker  was  chosen  in 


98  Abraham  Lincoln 

1 843 .  He  had  been  preceded  by  Stephen  A.  Douglas. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Abraham  Lincoln.  In  the 
various  moves  made  to  secure  the  nomination  for 
Congress,  Lincoln's  fairness  and  magnanimity  were 
conspicuous.  The  district  was  strongly  Whig,  and  a 
nomination  was  almost  an  election.  But  Lincoln, 
always  preferring  his  friend  before  himself,  loyally 
supported  each  of  his  most  intimate  associates,  and 
thought  his  to  be  the  better  claim.  On  one  occa- 
sion, having  been  a  candidate  for  the  nomination  to 
Congress,  Lincoln  was  elected  as  a  delegate  to  the 
nominating  convention,  and  was  instructed  to  vote 
for  E.  D.  Baker.  Of  this  predicament  he  good- 
naturedly  said:  "I  shall  be  fixed  a  good  deal  like 
the  fellow  who  is  made  groomsman  to  the  man  who 
cut  him  out  and  is  marrying  his  girl."  At  this  time, 
1842,  John  J.  Hardin  was  nominated  and  elected. 
He  was  one  of  Lincoln's  truest  friends;  he  was  sub- 
sequently killed  at  the  battle  of  Buena  Vista,  during 
the  Mexican  War. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE    RISING   POLITICIAN. 

Lincoln's  Admiration  of  Henry  Clay — An  Irresponsive  Idol — Slavery 
and  the  Tariff — Lincoln  Elected  to  Congress — The  Mexican  War 
— A  Queer  Nickname — Rise  of  the  Free-Soil  Party — Election 
of  Gen.  Taylor — Return  to  Springfield — The  Boys  of  Lincoln — A 
Shiftless  Relative. 

IT  was  said  of  Lincoln  that  he  was  a  born  politician 
and  that,  as  a  political  prophet,  he  made  few 
mistakes.  But  he  was  deeply  and  overwhelmingly 
disappointed,  in  1844,  when  his  idol,  Henry  Clay, 
was  defeated  for  the  Presidency  by  James  K.  Polk  of 
Tennessee.  For  once,  Lincoln  had  no  doubts,  ap- 
parently, as  to  the  success  of  a  campaign  on  which 
he  had  staked  so  great  expectations.  But  Clay  was 
defeated,  and  the  Whigs,  plunged  into  the  depths  of 
grief,  went  to  the  length,  in  some  localities,  of  wear- 
ing mourning  badges  to  show  the  hoplessness  of  their 
woe.  Clay  was  the  idol  of  those  who  had  supported 
him  for  the  Presidency;  and  Lincoln,  sincere  as  was 
his  personal  disappointment  and  grief,  was  only  one 
of  thousands  who  felt  as  he  did.  The  defeat  was 
unexpected,  and  its  very  unexpectedness  made  it 
harder  to  bear.  Long  after  this,  Lincoln  was  ac- 
customed to  refer  to  the  defeat  of  Clay  as  one  of  his 
keenest  personal  sorrows. 

It  is  very  likely,  however,  that  the  edge  of  this 

99 


ioo  Abraham  Lincoln 

grief  was  made  less  sharp  by  Clay's  own  conduct. 
In  1846,  Lincoln,  learning  that  Clay  was  to  speak  in 
Lexington,  Kentucky,  made  a  pilgrimage  to  that 
place  in  order  that  he  might  hear  the  voice,  grasp  the 
hand,  and  look  in  the  magnetic  eyes  of  his  adored 
leader.  Clay's  speech  was  on  the  subject  of  coloniz- 
ing Africa  with  emancipated  American  slaves,  an 
expedient  then  attracting  much  attention  in  the 
republic  as  a  possible  solution  of  the  problem  of 
American  slavery,  now  becoming  more  and  more 
difficult  and  more  than  ever  discussed.  Clay's 
speech,  on  this  occasion,  was  written  out  and  was 
read  in  a  cold  manner,  very  unlike  what  Lincoln  had 
expected  of  the  fiery  and  impetuous  Kentucky  orator. 
Lincoln,  who  had  come  so  far  to  hear  what  was  a 
very  commonplace  address,  was  disappointed.  Never- 
theless, when  the  meeting  was  dissolved,  he  sought 
the  much-wished-for  introduction  to  Clay.  The 
Kentuckian,  knowing  how  true  a  friend  was  the 
Illinois  Whig  leader,  invited  him  to  accompany  him 
to  Ashland,  the  seat  of  the  Clay  family.  We  may 
imagine  the  elation  with  which  Lincoln  accepted  this 
unexpected  invitation  from  the  object  of  his  wor- 
ship. But  more  disillusion  was  in  store  for  him. 
Clay  was  proud,  distant,  and  haughty  in  his  manner, 
and  he  evidently  regarded  Lincoln  as  a  clodhopper, 
a  rude  backwoodsman,  whose  personal  affection  for 
"the  great  Whig  chief"  must  be  rewarded  by  a  few 
curt  words  of  welcome.  He  was  conceited  in  himself, 
impatient  of  suggestions  or  advice  from  others. 
Lincoln  was  humble,  conscious  of  his  own  short- 
comings. Clay  was  sufficient  unto  himself.  Lin- 


The  Rising  Politician  101 

coin's  invariable  habit  was  to  defer  to  others.  Clay, 
in  the  fulness  of  his  popularity,  accepted  the  defer- 
ence offered  him  as  his  due.  Lincoln  felt  that  his 
hero-worship  was  an  egregious  blunder.  He  went 
back  to  Springfield,  as  he  afterwards  expressed  it, 
"with  the  enthusiasm  all  oozed  out  of  him."  The 
man  who  was  to  be  President  had  learned  a  lesson 
from  him  who  never  could  be  President.  It  was  a 
lesson  never  forgotten. 

In  1846,  Lincoln  was  nominated  for  Congress,  and 
one  object  of  his  ambition  was  within  reach.  His 
competitor  on  the  Democratic  ticket  was  Peter  Cart- 
wright,  a  backwoods  preacher  and  exhorter,  famous 
in  his  time  for  the  vigor  with  which  he  pursued  every 
topic  to  which  he  addressed  himself.  It  was  thought 
that  Cartwright  would  poll  a  very  much  larger  vote 
than  that  usually  given  to  a  Democratic  candidate  in 
the  district,  possibly  might  be  elected.  But  Lincoln 
astonished  his  opponents  by  the  fulness  of  his  vote. 
His  majority  over  Cartwright  was  sixteen  hundred 
and  eleven,  considerably  more  than  any  other  Whig 
candidate  had  a  right  to  expect. 

When  Lincoln  took  the  "stump "  for  himself  in  the 
canvass,  he  had  a  plenty  of  material  for  his  addresses 
to  the  people.  During  the  preceding  winter,  the 
new  State  of  Texas  had  been  admitted  to  the  Union, 
a  measure  to  which  Lincoln,  and  other  Whigs,  was 
bitterly  opposed.  Texas  had  first  seceded  from 
Mexico,  and,  after  a  sharp  war,  had  gained  something 
that  was  akin  to  independence.  At  least,  the  war 
was  temporarily  suspended,  according  to  Mexican 
notions  of  the  position  of  affairs,  and  the  new  State 


102  Abraham  Lincoln 

proposed  to  join  the  family  of  the  United  States. 
After  various  expedients  had  been  tried  without 
success,  the  Democratic  administration  of  the  Govern- 
ment finally  did  secure  the  annexation  of  Texas. 
This  was  done  in  order  that  a  new  slave  State  might 
be  added  to  the  Union.  The  increase  of  population 
in  the  North,  so  much  more  rapid  than  it  was  in  the 
South,  made  it  necessary  that  something  should  be 
done  to  maintain  the  political  strength  of  the  slave 
States.  The  work  of  achieving  the  independence  of 
Texas  was  accomplished  largely  by  Americans,  and 
it  was  felt  that  this  was  only  to  prepare  the  way  to 
bring  the  young  republic  into  the  Union.  This 
suspicion  was  certainty  when  the  Southern  States 
insisted  that  Texas  should  be  brought  into  the 
Federal  Union,  without  delay.  This  was  finally 
brought  about,  and  Mexico,  which  had  agreed  to  a 
cessation  of  hostilities  for  a  time,  immediately  began 
a  war  with  Texas  and  the  United  States.  This,  and 
a  reduction  of  the  tariff  on  imported  goods,  for  which 
the  Democrats  were  responsible,  gave  the  Whigs 
ammunition  for  their  political  campaign;  and  we 
can  understand  how  vigorously  Lincoln  used  it  in 
his  canvass.  In  fact,  the  encroachments  of  slavery 
were  exciting  alarm  and  uneasiness  among  the  more 
thoughtful  and  observant  of  the  people  of  the  free 
States.  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  apparently  believed  that 
slavery  could  not  be  abolished  without  changing  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  was  as  uneasy  as 
any  other  man,  and  his  speeches  were  all  aimed, 
although  indirectly,  at  that  power. 

The  Congress  to  which  Lincoln  was  elected  was 


The  Rising  Politician  103 

the  Thirtieth,  and  Lincoln  took  his  seat  in  it  Decem- 
ber 6,  1847.  He  was  very  much  at  home  there,  for 
he  had  then  been  repeatedly  a  member  of  the  State 
Legislature,  had  "stumped"  Illinois  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  had  made  a  great  many  public  speeches, 
had  met  all  the  leading  men  of  that  region,  and  had 
been  accustomed  to  hold  his  own  in  debate.  Add  to 
all  this  the  fact  that  he  had,  ever  since  boyhood,  been 
a  diligent,  almost  hungry,  student  of  political  affairs, 
and  had  heard  them  discussed  in  public  places,  or 
had  read  in  the  newspapers,  and  we  shall  see  that 
he  was  no  tyro  in  affairs  that  were  likely  to  come 
before  Congress.  He  was  familiar  with  all  the  great 
questions,  had  debated  them  before  the  people,  and 
had  so  studied  the  history  of  his  country  that  he 
knew  all  that  had  happened  to  lead  up  to  the  crisis 
in  which  the  republic  then  found  itself — with  a  for- 
eign war  on  its  hands  and  a  new  State  in  the  Union, 
the  admission  of  which  a  great  many  public  men, 
in  and  out  of  Congress,  regarded  as  a  misfortune  to 
the  republic.  James  K.  Polk  was  President  of  the 
United  States,  and,  disappointed  by  a  failure  to  dis- 
pose of  the  Mexican  question  before  he  took  office, 
his  messages  to  Congress  were  designed  to  show  that 
the  war  with  Mexico  was  a  just  one,  and  that  he  had 
been  right  in  all  that  he  had  done  to  make  that  war 
inevitable. 

Lincoln's  acute  mind  saw  the  inconsistency  of  the 
President's  position,  and,  in  order  to  bring  from 
President  Polk,  if  possible,  a  statement  of  the  facts 
on  which  he  had  pretended  to  base  his  messages, 
Lincoln,  as  soon  as  he  had  fairly  become  used  to  his 


104  Abraham  Lincoln 

seat,  introduced  a  series  of  resolutions  asking  the 
President  for  information.  These  resolutions  were 
prefaced  by  a  clear  statement  of  the  situation,  as 
it  appeared  to  him,  together  with  sundry  extracts 
from  the  President's  messages  of  that  year  and  the 
year  next  preceding.  The  aim  of  these  resolutions 
will  be  seen  by  quoting  the  first  three,  as  follows: 

"That  the  President  of  the  United  States  be  respect- 
fully requested  to  inform  this  house : 

' '  First .  Whether  the  spot  on  which  the  blood  of  our  citi- 
zens was  shed,  as  in  his  messages  declared,  was  or  was  not 
within  the  territory  of  Spain,  at  least  after  the  treaty  of 
1819,  until  the  Mexican  revolution. 

"Second.  Whether  this  spot  is  or  is  not  within  the 
territory  which  was  wrested  from  Spain  by  the  revolu- 
tionary government  of  Mexico. 

"  Third.  Whether  that  spot  is  or  is  not  within  a  settle- 
ment of  people,  which  settlement  has  existed  ever  since 
long  before  the  Texas  revolution  and  until  its  inhabitants 
fled  before  the  approach  of  the  United  States  army." 

The  questions  were  never  answered.  No  answer 
was  probably  expected.  It  was  seen  that  if  the 
President  or  the  President's  friends  should  undertake 
to  reply,  and  admit  the  real  facts,  the  position  taken 
by  Mr.  Polk,  and  those  who  defended  the  war, 
would  be  surrendered.  So,  not  being  able  to  make 
answer  to  the  only  Whig  representative  from  Illinois, 
the  tall  backwoods  lawyer,  they  contented  them- 
selves with  giving  him  a  nickname.  As  he  had  used 
the  word  "spot"  several  times  in  the  resolutions  and 
in  the  speech  that  followed,  he  was  known  for  a 


The  Rising  Politician  105 

time,  at  least,  as  "Spot  Lincoln."  The  speech, 
which  was  delivered  in  the  succeeding  January,  was 
a  masterly  one,  reviewing  the  causes  of  the  Mexican 
War  and  severely  arraigning  the  administration  for 
its  persistence  in  the  matter  of  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  and  thus  involving  the  country  in  a  bloody 
and  causeless  fight  with  Mexico. 

It  is  well  to  bear  in  mind  that  there  were  many 
eminent  men  in  Congress  in  those  days.  In  the 
Senate  were  Daniel  Webster,  Lewis  Cass,  John  A. 
Dix,  Thomas  H.  Benton,  John  C.  Calhoun,  Jefferson 
Davis,  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas,  and  other  well- 
known  statesmen.  In  the  House  of  Representatives 
were  such  men  as  ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams, 
Caleb  B.  Smith,  afterwards  a  member  of  Lincoln's 
cabinet,  John  G.  Palfrey,  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  An- 
drew Johnson,  elected  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States  when  Lincoln  was  chosen  for  his  second  term ; 
Alexander  H.  Stephens,  afterwards  Vice-President 
of  the  Southern  Confederacy;  Robert  Toombs,  the 
Southern  slaveholder  who  promised  to  have  his 
slaves  mustered  to  roll-call  on  Bunker  Hill;  Howell 
Cobb,  afterwards  a  general  in  the  rebel  army,  and 
many  others  famous  in  the  stormy  times  then  mak- 
ing ready  in  the  distance.  In  this  illustrious  com- 
pany of  legislators,  Lincoln  was  recognized  as  a  man 
of  marked  ability.  Speaking  of  him,  long  after- 
wards, Alexander  H.  Stephens  said: 

"  He  always  attracted  and  riveted  the  attention  of  the 
House  when  he  spoke.  His  manner  of  speech,  as  well  as 
thought,  was  original.  He  had  no  model.  He  was  a  man 


io6  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  strong  convictions  and  what  Carlyle  would  have  called 
an 'earnest  man.  He  abounded  in  anecdote.  He  illus- 
trated everything  he  was  talking  about  with  an  anecdote, 
always  exceedingly  apt  and  pointed;  and  socially  he 
always  kept  his  company  in  a  roar  of  laughter." 

We  see  that  many  of  the  traits  of  the  pioneer  boy 
still  stuck  to  the  mature  man,  now  in  Congress. 
Lincoln  took  part  in  the  debates  of  the  House  rather 
more  frequently  than  most  new  members  did  then,  or 
do  in  these  later  days.  Some  of  his  speeches,  to  be 
found  in  the  printed  record  of  Congress,  show  char- 
acteristic touches  of  humor.  For  example,  speaking 
of  the  attempt  to  make  a  military  hero  of  General 
Lewis  Cass,  who  was  to  be  the  next  Democratic  can- 
didate for  President,  and  who  was  said  to  have  been 
an  important  figure  in  a  small  fight  on  the  Canadian 
border,  Lincoln  said,  with  rough  sarcasm: 

"He  invaded  Canada  without  resistance,  and  he  out- 
vaded  without  pursuit."  "He  was  volunteer  aid  to 
General  Harrison  on  the  day  of  the  battle  of  the  Thames, 
and  as  you  said,  in  1840,  that  Harrison  was  picking 
whortleberries,  two  miles  off,  while  the  battle  was  fought, 
I  suppose  it  is  a  just  conclusion  with  you  to  say  that  Cass 
was  aiding  Harrison  to  pick  whortleberries." 

It  is  to  be  noticed  that  Lincoln,  while  he  disap- 
proved of  the  Mexican  War,  always  voted  to  reward 
the  bravery  of  the  soldiers  who  fought  the  battles 
and  who  were  not  in  any  way  responsible  for  the 
war.  Later,  when  he  and  Douglas  were  holding  a 
political  discussion,  Douglas  reproached  Lincoln 


The  Rising  Politician  107 

with  being  an  enemy  of  his  country  during  the  Mexi- 
can War.  Lincoln  replied:  "I  was  an  old  Whig, 
and  when  the  Democratic  party  tried  to  get  me  to 
vote  that  the  war  had  been  righteously  begun  by  the 
President,  I  would  not  do  it.  But  when  they  asked 
for  money,  or  land  warrants,  or  anything  to  pay  the 
soldiers,  I  gave  the  same  vote  that  Douglas  did." 
This  was  true,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  Whig 
politicians  who  disapproved  of  the  war,  and  were 
compelled  by  public  opinion  to  vote  for  war  sup- 
plies, had  a  hard  time  of  it.  If  this  was  true  of  the 
Whigs,  Lincoln  showed,  with  great  force  and  caustic 
scorn,  that  the  Democratic  President  was  also  in 
great  perplexity.  Speaking  of  the  President's  strug- 
gles to  set  himself  right,  when  he  knew  that  he  was 
wrong,  Lincoln  said: 

"  He  knows  not  where  he  is."  "  All  this  shows  that  the 
President  is  by  no  means  satisfied  with  his  positions. 
First,  he  takes  up  one,  and,  in  attempting  to  argue  us  into 
it,  he  argues  himself  out  of  it.  Then  he  seizes  another, 
and  goes  through  the  same  process ;  and  then,  confused  at 
being  able  to  think  of  nothing  new,  he  snatches  up  the 
old  one  again,  which  .he  has  some  time  before  cast  off. 
His  mind,  tasked  beyond  its  powers,  is  running  hither  and 
thither,  like  some  tortured  thing  on  a  burning  surface, 
finding  no  position  on  which  it  can  settle  down  and  be  at 
ease." 

This  speech  was  made  in  the  House  of  Represent- 
atives after  Taylor  had  been  nominated  at  Phila- 
delphia by  the  Whigs  in  1848.  Clay  had  been 
supported  in  that  convention  as  a  candidate  more  fit 


io8  Abraham  Lincoln 

than  Taylor;  but  Taylor  had  won  fame  on  the  field 
of  Buena  Vista,  during  the  Mexican  War,  and  he  had 
not  been  in  favor  of  carrying  that  war  forward  to 
the  banks  of  the  Rio  Grande,  the  disputed  boundary 
between  Texas  and  Mexico.  He  was  urged  in  the 
convention  as  the  most  available  man  for  the  nomi- 
nation, and  the  word  "availability"  was  repeated 
with  much  scorn  by  Mr.  Clay's  friends  afterwards. 
Lincoln  was  a  delegate  to  the  Whig  convention  that 
nominated  Taylor,  and  he  was  enthusiastically  in 
favor  of  the  "Hero  of  Buena  Vista,"  as  the  General 
was  styled  by  his  admirers.  General  Taylor's  man- 
ners were  very  blunt,  and  his  usual  address  was 
abrupt.  His  followers  gave  him  the  title  of  "Rough 
and  Ready,"  and  the  name  was  used  as  a  battle-cry 
all  through  the  campaign.  Indeed,  the  Whigs  re- 
sorted to  all  the  tricks  and  devices  that  had  made 
the  "Log-Cabin  and  Hard-Cider"  campaign  of  Har- 
rison and  Tyler  so  successful.  Lincoln  was  not  only 
enthusiastically  in  favor  of  Taylor's  nomination,  but 
he  was  confident  of  his  election.  In  a  letter  to  a 
friend,  written  a  few  days  after  the  Philadelphia 
convention,  he  said  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  Whigs 
would  have  "a  most  overwhelming  and  glorious  tri- 
umph," and  he  added:  "One  unmistakable  sign  is 
that  all  the  odds  and  ends  are  with  us — Barn- 
burners, Native  Americans,  Tyler  men,  disappointed 
office-seeking  Locofocos,  and  the  Lord  knows  what. 
This  is  important,  if  in  nothing  else,  in  showing 
which  way  the  wind  blows." 

This  queer  list  of  party  factions  shows  how  par- 
ties were  then  beginning  to  break  up.     The  Barn- 


The  Rising  Politician  109 

burners  were  the  antislavery  seceders  from  the 
Democratic  party  in  New  York.  The  Tyler  men 
were  those  who  adhered  to  the  fortunes  and  alleged 
principles  of  John  Tyler,  who,  having  been  elected 
Vice-President  with  General  Harrison  by  the  Whigs, 
afterward  became  President  by  the  death  of  Harri- 
son, and  then  went  over  to  the  Democratic  party, 
taking  with  him  a  fraction  of  his  own  party.  In 
August  of  that  year,  1848,  the  New  York  anti- 
slavery  Democrats  assembled  at  Buffalo,  New  York, 
and  organized  the  Free-Soil  party.  It  was  pledged, 
not  to  the  abolition  of  slavery,  but  to  its  restriction 
to  the  territory  it  already  occupied.  The  new  party 
was  determined  that  the  soil  of  the  territories  then 
in  existence,  and  thereafter  to  be  acquired,  should 
be  free;  that  there  should  be  no  more  slave  labor 
outside  of  the  States  in  which  slavery  existed,  and 
that  every  citizen  of  the  United  States  should  have 
full  liberty  to  speak  his  sentiments  concerning  any 
topic  before  the  people,  even  concerning  slavery. 
The  slaveholders  had  begun  to  suppress  newspapers 
that  were  against  slavery,  and  to  oppress  men  who 
dared  to  say  that  slavery  was  not  right  and-  just. 
The  battle-cry  of  the  Free-Soilers  in  that  canvass  was 
"Free  Soil,  Free  Labor,  and  Free  Speech."  They 
nominated  Martin  Van  Buren  for  President  and 
Charles  Francis  Adams  for  Vice-President.  The 
Free-Soilers  of  that  day  included  many  eminent  men, 
some  of  whom  had  come  out  of  the  Democratic  party 
on  account  of  its  cringing  attitude  to  slavery  in  the 
United  States.  Among  the  Free-Soilers  were  Salmon 
P.  Chase,  afterward  Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme 


no  Abraham  Lincoln 

Court  of  the  United  States;  Charles  Sumner;  Henry 
Wilson,  afterward  Senator  from  Massachusetts,  and 
then  Vice -President  of  the  republic ;  William  Cullen 
Bryant;  John  P.  Hale,  then  and  afterward  a  Sena- 
tor from  New  Hampshire ;  and  many  others. 

The  Democrats,  meantime,  had  nominated  for 
President  Lewis  Cass.  This  gentleman,  as  we  have 
seen,  had  had  a  very  slight  taste  of  war  in  the  skir- 
mish known  as  the  battle  of  the  Thames ;  and,  as 
the  Whig  candidate  was  hurrahed  for  as  a  military 
hero,  the  Democrats  attempted  very  unsuccessfully 
to  give  Cass  a  military  reputation.  The  experiment 
failed.  The  slavery  question,  which  could  not  any 
longer  be  kept  down,  was  judiciously  omitted  from 
the  platforms  of  the  Whigs  and  the  Democrats.  The 
Free-Soilers  were  sufficiently  outspoken  in  their  plat- 
form; but  we  shall  find  that  the  speakers  of  the 
other  two  parties,  after  all,  were  obliged  to  say 
something  about  the  great  but  much-dreaded  ques- 
tion. William  H.  Seward,  afterwards  Senator  and 
Secretary  of  State,  said,  in  a  speech  supporting  Tay- 
lor's candidacy:  "Freedom  and  slavery  are  two 
antagonistic  elements  of  society  in  America."  "The 
party  of  freedom  seeks  complete  and  universal  eman- 
cipation." Daniel  Webster,  who 'also  supported 
Taylor,  insisted  that  the  Whigs  were  the  real  Free- 
Soilers.  Lincoln  avowed  himself  to  be  "a  Northern 
man,  or,  rather,  a  Western  Free-State  man,  with  a 
constituency  I  believe  to  be,  and  with  personal  feel- 
ings I  know  to  be,  against  the  extension  of  slavery." 
The  Congressional  recess  began  in  August,  and  Lin- 
coln went  immediately  to  New  England,  where  he 


The  Rising  Politician  m 

took  the  stump  for  Taylor.  His  speeches  were  char- 
acterized by  their  keenness  of  analysis,  wit,  humor, 
and  unanswerable  logic.  He  was  in  close  communi- 
cation with  the  Whig  leaders  in  Illinois,  and  con- 
tinually wrote  them,  giving  them  advice,  counsel, 
and  hints  for  the  conduct  of  the  campaign.  Some 
of  these  letters  are  very  interesting  as  showing  the 
thoroughness  of  Lincoln's  methods.  In  a  letter  to 
his  partner,  W.  H.  Herndon,  he  says:  "Let  every 
one  play  the  part  he  can  play  best.  Some  can  speak, 
some  can  sing,  and  all  can  halloo."  When  he  had 
filled  his  engagements  in  New  England  and  New 
York  he  returned  at  once  to  Illinois,  where  he  threw 
himself  into  the  canvass  with  great  fervor,  speaking 
day  and  night  until  the  election,  which  occurred  in 
November,  1848. 

When  the  votes  were  counted,  it  was  found  that 
General  Taylor  was  elected,  having  163  electors, 
while  Cass  had  137.  Van  Buren,  not  having  carried 
any  one  State,  had  no  electors.  Of  the  total  number 
of  votes  cast  in  all  the  States,  Taylor  had  1,360,752; 
Cass  had  1,219,962;  Van  Buren  had  291,342.  Great 
was  the  joy  of  the  Whigs;  bonfires  and  illumina- 
tions flamed,  and  the  Whig  newspapers  broke  out 
with  cuts,  big  type,  and  other  devices  to  show  mani- 
fest exultation,  unknown  in  these  days.  There  was 
a  general  feeling  of  satisfaction  all  over  the  North, 
for  it  was  felt  that  the  election  of  Taylor  would, 
somehow,  prevent  the  further  extension  of  slavery. 
In  fact,  although  probably  very  few,  except  such 
shrewd  politicians  as  Lincoln,  saw  it,  the  triumph 
of  the  Whigs,  assisted  by  the  Free-Soil  party,  was 


ii2  Abraham  Lincoln 

making  ready  for  the  formation  of  a  new  party  that 
was  to  bring  to  pass  what  none  then  thought  possible 
— the  abolition  of  slavery.  It  should  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  votes  cast  for  Van  Buren  would  have 
elected  Cass  had  they  all  been  given  to  him.  And 
the  bulk  of  those  votes  had  come  out  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party. 

When  Congress  reassembled  in  December  of  that 
year,  after  the  Presidential  election,  the  aspect  of 
things  was  materially  changed.  Lincoln  and  other 
ardent  Whigs  were  no  longer  in  a  hopeless  minority 
in  the  country,  and  the  Northern  Democrats,  who 
believed  that  they  had  been  sacrificed  in  the  interest 
of  Southern  slavery,  were  angry  and  sullen.  They 
were  ready  to  wreak  their  spite  on  their  Southern 
Democratic  friends.  One  of  these,  Mr.  Root  of 
Ohio,  very  soon  introduced  a  resolution  favoring  the 
organization  of  the  new  Territories,  California  and 
New  Mexico,  with  constitutions  that  should  exclude 
slavery;  this  caused  great  uproar.  The  Territories 
in  question  had  been  acquired  by  the  treaty  under 
which  the  quar  el  with  Mexico  was  settled;  and  it 
had  been  hop^d  and  expected  by  the  South  that 
slavery  would  ':>e  extended  there,  as  it  had  been  in 
Texas.  When  the  Root  resolution  came  to  a  vote 
in  the  House,  the  Southern  men  were  solidly  against 
it ;  eight  Northern  Democrats  were  with  those  of  the 
South;  and  all  the  Whigs  from  the  North  and  all 
the  Northern  Democrats  but  the  eight  referred  to 
voted  for  it.  The  resolution,  however,  got  no  far- 
ther than  the  Senate,  where  it  was  killed  by  the 
slavery  majority. 


The  Rising  Politician  113 

In  this,  as  in  all  measures  designed  to  cripple  the 
institution  of  slavery,  Lincoln  voted  with  the  friends 
of  freedom,  although  he  did  not  take  an  active  part 
in  the  debate.  He  seemed  to  be  w  iting  and  watch- 
ing, after  his  usual  cautious  fashion.  Later  in  the 
session,  he  introduced  a  bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia.  He  thought  it  a  shame  and  a 
disgrace  that  traffic  in  slaves  should  be  carried  on 
right  under  the  shadow  of  the  Capitol  in  which  the 
National  Congress  assembled  to  transact  the  public 
biisiness.  And,  like  many  another  Northern  man, 
his  heart  was  stirred  with  indignation  to  see  coffles, 
or  gangs,  of  slaves,  handcuffed  and  linked  in  chains, 
passing  through  the  streets  of  Washington  on  the 
way  to  the  South.  This  was  a  good  time  to  test  the 
feeling  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  His  bill 
provided  that  no  person  from  without  the  District 
should  be  held  to  slavery  in  it;  and  that  no  person 
thereafter  born  in  the  District  should  be  held  in 
slavery  anywhere.  It  also  provided  for  the  gradual 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  then  in  the  District,  the 
owners  of  the  same  being  paid  for  them  by  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States.  The  bill  was  to  be 
voted  on  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  District  before  it 
should  be  a  law.  The  bill  seems  to  us,  in  these  days 
of  enlightenment,  very  moderate.  It  recognized 
property  in  persons,  for  it  provided  that  the  Govern- 
ment should  buy  and  free  the  slaves.  But  the  bill 
was  framed  so  that  it  might,  if  possible,  pass  Con- 
gress, not  as  an  expression  of  what  Lincoln  thought 
was  just  and  right  to  the  slave  and  the  slaveholder. 
But,  temperate  though  the  bill  was,  it  excited  a 

•8. 


ii4  Abraham  Lincoln 

storm  of  opposition.  The  Southern  members  were 
determined  that  no  bill  that  was  calculated  to  weaken 
slavery  in  any  way,  or  to  imply  that  slavery  was 
not  everything  that  was  lovely  and  of  good  report, 
should  ever  pass  Congress,  if  they  could  help  it. 
Lincoln's  bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  never  came  to  a  vote.  Soon  after,  Con- 
gress adjourned  and  Lincoln,  his  term  of  office  being 
out,  went  home  to  Illinois.  When  he  was  to  return 
to  the  national  capital,  twelve  years  later,  it  would 
be  to  remain  until  slavery  was  abolished  from  one 
end  of  the  republic  to  the  other. 

Lincoln  was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election.  As 
his  was  the  only  Whig  district  in  the  State,  and  was 
full  of  ambitious  and  able  men  who  were  Whigs,  it 
had  become  the  custom  of  the  party  to  give  the 
office  of  Congressman  to  no  man  twice  in  succession. 
Any  man  who  wanted  it  for  a  second  time  was 
thought  greedy.  Edward  D.  Baker  had  just  re- 
turned from  the  Mexican  War,  covered  with  the 
honors  he  had  gained  on  the  battlefield  of  Cerro 
Gordo.  He  was  nominated  and  elected  to  succeed 
Lincoln.  For  the  first  and  last  time  in  his  life,  Lin- 
coln became  an  applicant  to  an  appointive  office. 
Taylor  was  now  President,  and,  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  time,  all  the  Democrats  were  to  be 
turned  out  of  office  and  their  places  given  to  Whigs 
who  had  done  service  in  the  campaign.  Lincoln, 
with  a  plenty  of  ideas  concerning  public  improve- 
ments and  with  some  experience  as  a  surveyor  of 
lands,  thought  he  would  like  to  be  the  Commissioner 
of  the  General  Land  Office,  a  place  in  which  he 


The  Rising  Politician  115 

would  have  charge  of  the  sale  and  distribution  of  the 
lands  belonging  to  the  United  States  Government. 
To  the  surprise  of  his  friends,  and  to  his  own  great 
disappointment,  which  he  did  not  attempt  to  con- 
ceal, Lincoln  was  refused  the  office  he  sought,  but 
was  offered  that  of  Governor  of  the  Territory  of 
Oregon.  This  place,  however,  he  declined.  It  was 
not  to  his  taste,  and,  most  likely,  he  was  beginning 
to  see  that  he  had  a  greater  work  on  this  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains.  Moreover,  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  de- 
cidedly opposed  to  going  to  the  Pacific  coast.  She 
had  had  enough  of  frontier  life.  Years  afterward, 
when  her  husband  had  become  President,  she  did 
not  fail  to  remind  him  that  her  advice,  when  he  was 
wavering,  had  restrained  him  from  "throwing  him- 
self away"  on  a  distant  territorial  governorship. 
The  bait  held  out  to  Lincoln  at  that  time  was  that 
Oregon  would  soon  come  into  the  Union  as  a  State 
and  that  he  could  probably  return  as  a  United  States 
Senator.  This  glittering  prospect  made  him  pause 
until  his  wife's  opposition  determined  him.  It  is  a 
curious  coincidence  that,  when  Lincoln  was  Presi- 
dent, Edward  D.  Baker,  who  was  Lincoln's  friend 
and  his  successor  in  Congress,  went  to  Oregon  from 
California  and  was  elected  United  States  Senator 
from  that  State. 

During  Lincoln's  term  in  Congress,  lasting  from 
December,  1847,  to  March,  1849,  he  retained  his 
home  in  Springfield,  his  wife  being  in  Washington 
with  him  only  on  brief  visits.  Their  eldest  son, 
Robert  Todd,  was  born  August  i,  1843;  the  second, 
Edward  Baker,  was  born  March  10,  1846;  the  third, 


n6  Abraham  Lincoln 

William  Wallace,  December  21,  1850;  and  the 
fourth,  Thomas,  April  4,  1853.  Of  these,  the  second 
died  in  infancy;  the  third  died  while  his  father  was 
President;  the  fourth  survived  his  father,  dying  at 
the  age  of  nineteen.  The  eldest,  Robert,  Secretary 
of  War  under  Garfield  and  under  Arthur,  is  the  sole 
survivor  of  the  family.  When  Lincoln  returned  to 
Springfield  from  Congress,  he  found  his  law  practice 
fallen  away,  so  that,  to  use  his  own  expression,  he 
had  to  begin  all  over  again.  But  he  had  gained 
reputation  during  his  Congressional  term,  and  he 
rebuilt  his  practice  with  ready  skill  and  untiring  in- 
dustry. He  had  bought  a  house  and  lot  in  Spring- 
field, and  there  established  himself  and  his  family 
under  a  roof  of  his  own,  which  he  was  never  to  leave 
until  he  left  it  for  the  last  time,  when  he  went  to 
take  up  his  residence  in  the  White  House  at  Wash- 
ington. We  are  told  that  it  was  a  pleasant  and 
sunny  home,  where  love  and  order  reigned.  In  the 
society  of  his  children  Lincoln  took  great  delight. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  his  was  a  stern  rule.  It  was 
well-nigh  impossible  for  him  to  exercise  any  right  of 
government  with  his  children.  They  were  passion- 
ately fond  of  their  father;  but  it  must  be  admitted 
that  censorious  visitors  sometimes  went  away  won- 
dering why  he  so  "indulged"  his  boys.  Perhaps 
he  remembered  his  own  hard  childhood  and  the 
scanty  joys  and  comforts  of  those  dark  years. 

As  we  have  seen,  Mr.  Lincoln's  father,  Thomas 
Lincoln,  was  se  Jed  near  Decatur,  Macon  County, 
Illinois,  where  his  son  Abraham,  assisted  by  Thomas 
Hanks,  had  fenced  in,  with  rails  of  their  own  split- 


The  Rising  Politician  117 

ting,  a  small  section  of  a  new  farm.  After  Abraham 
went  out  to  seek  his  own  fortune,  his  father  moved 
several  times,  never  long  satisfied  to  remain  in  one 
place.  He  finally  settled  in  "Goose  Nest  Prairie," 
a  small  farming  community  in  Coles  County,  Illinois, 
where  he  remained  until  his  death,  in  1851,  at  the. 
age  of  seventy-three.  Whatever  he  had  thought  of 
the  abilities  of  his  son,  who  had  bothered  him  with 
his  youthful  habit  of  speech-making  and  his  pro- 
clivity to  "talking  politics,"  Thomas  Lincoln  lived 
to  see  him  one  of  the  best-known  men  and  leading 
lawyers  of  the  State.  As  soon  as  he  could  spare  any- 
thing from  his  own  earnings,  after  his  load  of  debt 
was  lifted,  Lincoln  helped  his  parents  continually. 
He  bought  lands  for  them,  sent  them  good  gifts,  and 
in  many  ways  showed  his  filial  affection  to  the  end 
of  their  stay  on  earth. 

It  may  be  said  here  that  there  were  other  members 
of  the  Lincoln  family,  not  holding  so  strong  a  claim 
on  Abraham's  generosity,  that  were  helped  by  the 
warm-hearted  man.  John  Johnston,  Abraham's 
step-brother,  appears  to  have  been  an  unthrifty  and 
easy-going  person  who  needed  a  lift,  and  got  it,  now 
and  again,  from  the  frugal  and  not  over-rich  Spring- 
field lawyer.  In  a  letter  to  John,  written  about  the 
time  when  he  returned  from  Congress,  Lincoln  said: 
"At  the  various  times  when  I  have  helped  you  a 
little,  you  have  said  to  me,  'We  can  get  along  very 
well  now,'  but  in  a  short  time  I  find  you  in  the  same 
difficulty  again."  And  in  the  most  friendly  and 
affectionate  way  he  went  on  to  show  how  the  diffi- 
culty was  in  his  unwillingness  to  work  for  small  pay, 


n8  Abraham  Lincoln 

work  for  small  things,  work  for  what  could  be  got 
then,  rather  than  wait  for  something  better  to 
turn  up.  Later,  in  November,  1851,  Lincoln  wrote 
to  John,  giving  him  much  wholesome  advice,  as 
follows : 

"DEAR  BROTHER: — When  I  came  into  Charleston,  day 
before  yesterday,  I  learned  that  you  are  anxious  to  sell  the 
land  where  you  live  and  move  to  Missouri.  I  have  been 
thinking  of  this  ever  since,  and  cannot  but  think  such  a 
notion  is  utterly  foolish.  What  can  you  do  in  Missouri 
better  than  here?  Is  the  land  any  richer?  Can  you 
there,  any  more  than  here,  raise  corn  and  wheat  and  oats 
without  work?  Will  anybody  there,  any  more  than  here, 
do  your  work  for  you  ?  If  you  intend  to  go  to  work,  there 
is  no  better  place  than  right  where  you  are ;  if  you  do  not 
intend  to  go  to  work,  you  cannot  get  along  anywhere. 
Squirming  and  crawling  about  from  place  to  place  can  do 
no  good.  You  have  raised  no  crop  this  year,  and  what 
you  really  want  is  to  sell  the  land,  get  the  money,  and 
spend  it.  Part  with  the  land  you  have,  and,  my  life  upon 
it,  you  will  never  after  own  a  spot  big  enough  to  bury  you 
in.  Half  you  will  get  for  the  land  you  will  spend  in  mov- 
ing to  Missouri,  and  the  other  half  you  will  eat  and  drink 
and  wear  out,  and  no  foot  of  land  will  be  bought.  Now, 
I  feel  it  is  my  duty  to  have  no  hand  in  such  a  piece  of 
foolery.  I  feel  that  it  is  so  even  on  your  own  account,  and 
particularly  on  mother's  account.  The  eastern  forty 
acres  I  intend  to  keep  for  mother  while  she  lives.  If  you 
will  not  cultivate  it,  it  will  rent  for  enough  to  support  her ; 
at  least  it  will  rent  for  something.  Her  dower  in  the 
other  two  forties  she  can  let  you  have,  and  no  thanks  to 
me.  Now,  do  not  misunderstand  this  letter.  I  do  not 
write  it  in  any  unkindness.  I  write  it  in  order,  if  possible, 


The  Rising  Politician  119 

to  get  you  to  face  the  truth,  which  truth  is,  you  are  desti- 
tute because  you  have  idled  away  all  your  time.  Your 
thousand  pretences  deceive  nobody  but  yourself.  Go  to 
work,  is  the  only  cure  for  your  case." 


We  shall  understand  Lincoln  better  from  this  let- 
ter to  his  step-brother.  It  shows  him  to  be  inde- 
pendent, self-reliant,  and  disposed  to  make  his  own 
way  in  the  world  without  calling  on  others  to  carry 
him  along,  as  so  many  young  men  are  in  the  habit 
of  doing.  There  are  other  letters  extant  that  show 
that  Lincoln  had  repeatedly  assisted  this  same  step- 
brother; and  this  letter  gives  touching  evidence  of 
his  care  and  anxiety  for  his  step-mother.  None  of 
these  were  kin  to  Lincoln,  but  they  were,  all  the 
same,  a  charge  upon  his  generosity  and  affection, 
just  as  though  they  were  of  the  same  blood.  Brought 
up  in  a  hard  school,  Lincoln  was  early  taught  many 
practical  lessons  in  frugality  and  economy;  but  his 
natural  kindliness  and  open-handedness  were  never 
spoiled  by  penury  and  need.  He  never,  so  say  his 
contemporaries,  was  able  to  make  any  money  out- 
side of  his  profession.  The  only  possession  he  ever 
had  that  was  not  gained  by  sheer  hard  work  was  a 
tract  of  wild  land  in  Iowa,  given  to  him  by  the 
United  States  Government  (as  it  was  to  each  volun- 
teer), for  his  services  in  the  Black  Hawk  war.  When 
he  went  to  Washington  to  take  the  Presidency,  the 
sum  total  of  all  his  wealth  in  goods,  chattels,  lands, 
and  cash  was  valued  at  a  sum  not  so  great  as  a  single 
fee  sometimes  paid  in  these  later  days  to  a  lawyer 
of  the  standing  and  ability  he  had  at  that  time. 


120  Abraham  Lincoln 

Lincoln  was  thrifty  only  in  the  sense  of  working 
hard  for  what  he  got  and  never  spending  for  that 
which  was  not  absolutely  needful  for  the  comfort  and 
happiness  of  those  dependent  upon  him.  Parsimoni- 
ous he  never  was. 


S  i 


LJ       Q 

If 


CHAPTER  IX. 

LINCOLN   THE    LAWYER. 

An  Honest  Advocate  and  Counsellor — The  Snow  Boys  and  Old  Man 
Case — Famous  Lawsuits  about  Negroes — Jack  Armstrong's  Son 
on  Trial  for  Murder — Lincoln's  Vindication  of  His  Old  Friend — 
How  the  Attorney  Looked  and  Spoke. 

MENTION  has  already  been  made  of  Lincoln's 
immovable  honesty.  This  was  not  only  con- 
spicuous in  his  dealings  with  men,  but  in  his  course 
as  a  politician  and  a  lawyer.  No  man  more  than  he 
ever  made  so  many  concessions  to  his  opponents  in 
a  discussion,  and  yet  succeeded  in  convincing  those 
who  were  to  be  carried  by  his  argument,  whether  it 
was  a  jury  in  a  law-case,  or  an  audience  of  the  people 
in  a  political  canvass.  Sometimes,  those  who  were 
with  him,  but  did  not,  perhaps,  understand  his 
methods,  were  dismayed  as  they  heard  him  give  away 
point  after  point  in  the  case  that  he  presented. 
Their  surprise,  therefore,  was  very  great  when  he 
began  to  sum  up  and,  by  the  force  of  his  reasoning, 
won  his  suit.  This  was  because  he  knew  his  case 
thoroughly;  he  did  not  wait  until  its  weak  points 
were  disclosed  by  the  speaker  on  the  other  side.  He 
relied  on  what  lawyers  call  the  equity  of  the  case 
that  he  presented  to  the  minds  of  men ;  and  he  was 
sure  to  go  to  the  very  bottom  of  things  before  he 
got  through.  It  was  the  natural  habit  of  his  mind 


J22  Abraham  Lincoln 

to  look  at  the  objections  that  might  be  found  against 
any  given  course  rather  than  to  the  advantages  and 
attractions  of  the  same.  People  who  knew  him  only 
on  the  surface,  as  it  were,  said  that  he  looked  on  the 
dark  side  of  things.  This  was  not  exactly  true.  He 
considered  difficulties,  in  order  that  he  might  be  pre- 
pared for  failure  and  disappointment.  He  never 
forgot  the  advice  of  Captain  Davy  Crockett:  "Be 
sure  you  are  right,  then  go  ahead." 

Honest  himself,  he  was  intolerant  of  dishonesty  in 
others;  and  not  a  few  cases  are  mentioned  of  his 
fairly  blazing  with  wrath  when  he  presented  to  a  jury 
the  facts  which  showed  the  craft  and  wickedness  of 
those  who  would  escape  their  just  deserts.  He 
seemed  to  seize  upon  all  the  salient  points  of  his 
opponent's  case,  before  even  they  had  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  counsel  for  the  other  side.  And, 
what  was  remarkable,  he  seldom  appealed  to  the 
native  sense  of  justice  which  is  hidden  in  a  jury 
without  success.  A  good  instance  of  this  was  shown 
in  the  suit  of  an  old  man  named  Case,  brought 
against  "the  Snow  boys,"  to  recover  the  amount  of 
a  note  given  by  them  for  three  yoke  of  oxen  and  a 
"breaking  plough."  This  team  was  used  for  break- 
ing up  the  soil  of  the  virgin  prairie  and  was  abso- 
lutely needful  as  part  of  the  outfit  of  a  prairie  farmer, 
in  those  days.  The  Snow  boys  were  not  of  age. 
They  had  bought  the  team  and  had  given  their  note 
for  the  amount  of  the  purchase  money,  and,  being 
unable  to  pay  when  the  note  became  due,  they  were 
sued  for  the  money.  Their  counsel  appeared  in 
court  and  set  up  the  plea  that  the  defendants  were 


Lincoln  the  Lawyer  123 

infants,  or  minors,  when  the  note  was  given,  and 
were,  therefore,  in  law,  incompetent  to  make  a  con- 
tract, and  that  the  note  was  void. 

As  counsel  for  Case,  Lincoln  produced  in  court  the 
note  signed  by  the  Snow  boys.  It  was  admitted 
that  the  note  was  given  in  payment  for  the  plough 
and  oxen.  Then  the  defendants'  counsel  offered  to 
prove  that  they  were  under  age  when  they  signed 
the  note. 

"Yes,"  said  Lincoln,  "I  guess  we  will  admit  that." 

"Is  there  a  count  in  the  declaration  for  oxen  and 
plough  sold  and  delivered?"  asked  the  justice. 

' '  Yes, ' '  said  Lincoln ;  ' '  and  I  have  only  one  or  two 
questions  to  ask  of  the  witness  who  has  been  called 
by  the  defendants'  counsel  to  prove  the  age  of  his 
clients." 

"Where  is  that  prairie  team  now?"  asked  Lincoln. 

"On  the  farm  of  the  Snow  boys." 

"Have  you  seen  any  one  breaking  prairie  with  it 
lately?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  witness,  "the  boys  were  breaking 
up  with  it  yesterday." 

"How  old  are  the  boys  now?" 

"One  is  a  little  over  twenty-one,  and  the  other  is 
near  twenty-three." 

"That  is  all,"  said  Lincoln. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Lincoln  to  the  jury,  "these 
boys  never  would  have  tried  to  cheat  old  farmer 
Case  out  of  these  oxen  and  that  plough,  but  for  the 
advice  of  counsel.  It  was  bad  advice,  bad  in  morals, 
bad  in  law.  The  law  never  sanctions  cheating,  and 
a  lawyer  must  be  very  smart  indeed  to  twist  it  so 


124  Abraham  Lincoln 

* 

that  it  will  seem  to  do  so.  The  judge  will  tell  you, 
what  your  own  sense  of  justice  has  already  told  you, 
that  these  Snow  boys,  if  they  were  mean  enough  to 
plead  the  baby  act,  when  they  came  to  be  men 
would  have  taken  the  plough  and  oxen  back.  They 
cannot  go  back  on  their  contract  and  also  keep  what 
the  note  was  given  for." 

Without  leaving  their  seats,  the  jury,  made  up  of 
men  of  the  neighborhood,  gave  a  verdict  for  Lin- 
coln's client,  old  farmer  Case. 

A  more  celebrated  case  was  that  which  Lincoln 
tried  in  1841,  and  was  known  as  that  of  Bailey  vs. 
Cromwell.  A  negro  girl  named  Nancy  had  been 
sold,  as  a  slave,  or  indentured  servant,  by  Cromwell 
to  Bailey,  and  a  promissory  note  taken  in  payment. 
The  note  was  not  paid  when  it  became  due,  and  suit 
was  brought  in  the  Tazewell  County  Court,  Illinois, 
to  recover  the  amount,  and  judgment  was  given  for 
the  plaintiff.  The  case  was  then  taken  to  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  State,  and  Lincoln  appeared  for 
the  maker  of  the  note,  Bailey.  He  argued  that  the 
girl  could  not  be  held  in  slavery,  since,  under  what 
was  known  as  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  slavery  was 
prohibited  in  the  Northwestern  Territory,  of  which 
Illinois  was  a  part,  as  well  as  by  the  constitution  of 
that  State,  which  expressly  prohibited  slavery.  He 
insisted  that,  as  the  consideration  for  which  the  note 
was  given  was  a  human  being,  and,  under  the  laws  of 
Illinois,  a  human  being  could  not  be  bought  and  sold, 
the  note  was  void.  A  human  being  could  not  be  an 
object  of  sale  and  transfer  in  a  free  State.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  this  involved  some  of  the  questions 


Lincoln  the  Lawyer  125 

which  Lincoln  afterwards  took  so  large  a  part  in 
discussing.  His  argument,  covering  as  it  did  the 
existence  and  the  rights  claimed  for  human  slavery 
under  the  constitution  of  a  State,  the  Ordinance  of 
1787,  and  the  law  of  nations,  was  very  carefully  con- 
structed. The  court  reversed  the  judgment  and  the 
note  was  thus  declared  void,  as  Lincoln  had  alleged 
that  it  was.  At  that  time,  the  case  attracted  great 
attention  from  its  novelty  as  well  as  its  importance. 
Lincoln  was  then  thirty -two  years  of  age,  and  his 
connection  with  so  weighty  and  grave  a  suit  un- 
doubtedly occasioned  him  a  very  careful  and  thor- 
ough examination  of  the  questions  related  to  slavery. 
Another  slave  case  in  which  Lincoln  was  concerned 
was  more  interesting,  because  his  heart  was  engaged 
when  the  legal  aspect  of  the  affair  had  disappeared. 
An  old  slave  woman,  living  near  Springfield,  had 
been  born  in  slavery  in  Kentucky,  and,  with  her 
children,  had  passed  into  the  possession  of  a  man 
named  Hinkle.  Hinkle  had  moved  into  Illinois, 
bringing  his  slaves  with  him;  but,  as  he  could  not 
hold  them  there,  he  had  given  them  their  freedom. 
In  course  of  time,  a  son  of  the  woman  had  hired 
himself  as  a  cabin  waiter  on  a  steamboat  and  had 
voyaged  down  the  Mississippi.  At  New  Orleans  the 
boy  had  gone  ashore,  forgetting,  or  not  knowing, 
that  he  was  liable  to  arrest.  In  accordance  with  the 
custom  of  the  times,  he  was  seized  by  the  police  and 
locked  up,  the  rules  of  the  city  requiring  that  any 
colored  person  found  at  large,  after  night,  without  a 
written  pass  from  his  owner,  should  be  confined  in 
the  "calaboose."  After  some  delay,  the  boy  was 


i26  Abraham  Lincoln 

brought  out,  tried,  and  sentenced  to  pay  a  fine. 
Meanwhile  the  steamboat  had  left,  and  the  boy  was 
liable  to  be  sold  into  slavery  to  pay  his  fine.  Word 
was  sent  to  the  boy's  mother,  in  Illinois,  and,  in  her 
extremity,  she  came  to  Lincoln,  who  had  gained 
some  reputation  as  being  one  of  the  very  few  lawyers 
in  Springfield  who  dared  to  undertake  a  case  in- 
volving what  were  called  the  rights  of  slavery.  Lin- 
coln was  very  much  moved,  and  he  besought  his 
partner,  Mr.  W.  H.  Herndon,  to  go  and  see  the  Gov- 
ernor and  ask  if  there  was  no  way  by  which  a  free 
negro,  held  in  duress  in  New  Orleans,  could  be 
brought  home.  The  Governor  regretted  very  much 
to  say  that  there  was  no  remedy  provided  by  the 
constitution  or  the  laws  for  such  a  state  of  facts. 
He  could  do  nothing.  Lincoln  rose  to  his  feet,  in 
great  excitement,  and  said:  "By  the  Almighty! 
I  '11  have  that  negro  back  soon,  or  I  '11  have  a  twenty 
years'  excitement  in  Illinois  until  the  Governor  does 
have  a  legal  and  constitutional  right  to  do  some- 
thing in  the  premises!"  The  twenty  years'  excite- 
ment came  in  due  time,  but,  meanwhile,  the  two 
lawyers  sent  money  of  their  own  to  New  Orleans, 
entrusting  the  case  to  a  correspondent ;  the  fine  and 
other  expenses  were  paid  and  the  boy  sent  home  to 
his  grateful  mother. 

It  is  related  of  Edward  D.  Baker,  Lincoln's  friend 
and  comrade,  that,  being  once  asked  to  undertake  a 
suit  in  which  the  rights  of  a  fugitive  slave  were  in- 
volved, he  said  that,  as  a  public  man  and  a  politician, 
he  did  not  dare  to  take  it.  An  antislavery  friend  of 
the  man  who  was  in  trouble  was  next  applied  to  for 


Lincoln  the  Lawyer  127 

advice,  and  he  said :  "  Go  to  Lincoln.  He 's  not  afraid 
of  an  unpopular  case.  When  I  go  for  a  lawyer  to 
defend  an  arrested  fugitive  slave,  other  lawyers  will 
refuse  me,  but  if  Lincoln  is  at  home  he  will  always 
take  my  case." 

The  reader  will  remember  that  the  leader  of  "the 
Clary's  Grove  boys,"  Jack  Armstrong,  became  Lin- 
coln's steadfast  friend  and  ally,  after  the  tussle  be- 
tween him  and  young  Lincoln,  in  Salem,  during 
Lincoln's  rough  apprenticeship  in  the  company  of  the 
frontiersmen.  When  Jack  Armstrong  was  married, 
and  had  become  a  steady-going  householder,  his  home 
was  always  open  to  the  welcome  visits  of  his  old 
friend.  Here,  when  lack  of  employment  cast  him 
down,  Lincoln  found  a  harbor  of  rest  and  refuge.  It 
was  in  Mrs.  Jack  Armstrong's  house  that  a  chance 
visitor  first  saw  Lincoln,  prone  on  a  trundle-bed, 
rocking  a  cradle  with  one  foot  while  he  read  aloud. 
And  in  later  years,  when  Jack  Armstrong  was  dead 
and  his  boy  had  grown  to  man's  estate,  his  mother 
came  to  Lincoln  in  great  trouble.  Her  son,  William 
D.  Armstrong,  had  been  arrested  for  murder.  Lin- 
coln knew  nothing  of  the  case,  but  he  undertook  it, 
and,  after  looking  into  the  facts,  became  assured 
that  the  lad  was  innocent. 

It  appeared  that  young  Armstrong,  in  company 
with  some  of  his  mates,  had  visited  a  camp-meeting 
and  had  become  involved  in  a  quarrel.  The  diffi- 
culty was  prolonged  into  the  night,  and,  in  the 
course  of  the  fracas,  a  mortal  blow  was  dealt  to  a 
young  man  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  dispute,  what- 
ever it  was.  The  evidence  against  the  prisoner  was 


128  Abraham  Lincoln 

solid  and  substantial,  although  chiefly  circumstan- 
tial, except  that  one  witness  did  swear  that  he  saw 
the  prisoner  inflict  the  fatal  blow  with  a  slung-shot, 
by  "the  light  of  the  moon,  which  was  shining 
brightly."  Lincoln  surprised  everybody  by  his 
calm,  merciless,  and  destructive  analysis  of  the  evi- 
dence, which,  to  him,  looked  like  a  conspiracy  against 
young  Armstrong.  But  when  he  came  to  the  evi- 
dence of  the  man  who  had  made  oath  that  he  beheld 
the  blow  delivered  by  the  light  of  the  brightly  shining 
moon,  he  called  for  an  almanac  and  showed  that  on 
the  night  in  question  there  was  no  moon  at  all!  The 
climax  was  reached,  and  the  jury  brought  in  a  ver- 
dict of  "not  guilty."  The  widow  had  not  been  able 
to  endure  the  suspense  in  court,  and  had  gone  out 
into  a  pasture  to  weep  and  pray  alone.  Before  the 
sun  went  down,  a  messenger  came  running  to  her 
with  the  glad  tidings:  "Bill  is  free;  your  son  is 
cleared."  For  this  inestimable  service  Lincoln 
would  take  no  fee.  No  record  of  the  argument  in 
the  case  has  been  left,  but  one  who  heard  it  says  his 
plea  was  irresistible.  Even  before  he  reached  the 
climax  of  his  argument,  by  his  manly  eloquence  he 
had  succeeded  in  convincing  the  jury,  as  he  had  con- 
vinced himself,  that  young  Armstrong  was  innocent. 
And  this  was  done,  too,  when  popular  prejudice  was 
all  against  the  prisoner,  and  when,  in  consequence  of 
the  prevailing  belief  in  his  guilt,  Lincoln  had  been 
obliged  to  have  the  trial  moved  to  another  circuit. 
It  has  been  said  that  Lincoln  resorted  to  a  trick  and 
introduced  an  old  almanac  to  deceive  the  jury.  But 
to  those  who  knew  him,  this  tale  is  simply  incred- 


Lincoln  the  Lawyer  129 

ible.  Lincoln  never  employed  unworthy  tricks. 
The  foreman  of  the  jury  afterwards  offered  to  make 
affidavit  that  the  almanac  used  by  Lincoln  was  of 
the  year  of  the  murder. 

While  we  are  considering  Mr.  Lincoln  as  a  lawyer, 
it  may  be  as  well  to  read  what  an  eminent  judge  said 
of  him.  When  the  news  of  Lincoln's  death,  in  1865, 
was  officially  noted  in  the  courts  of  the  State,  Judge 
Drummond,  of  Chicago,  said:  "I  have  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that  he  was  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers  I 
have  ever  known."  And,  speaking  of  his  personal 
appearance  and  manner  at  the  bar,  the  Judge  said: 

"  With  a  voice  by  no  means  pleasant,  and,  indeed,  when 
excited,  in  its  shrill  tones  sometimes  almost  disagreeable, 
without  any  of  the  personal  graces  of  the  orator,  without 
much  in  the  outward  man  indicating  superiority  of 
intellect,  without  great  quickness  of  perception, — still, 
his  mind  was  so  vigorous,  his  comprehension  so  exact  and 
clear,  and  his  judgment  so  sure,  that  he  easily  mastered 
the  intricacies  of  his  profession,  and  became  one  of  the 
ablest  reasoners  and  most  impressive  speakers  at  our  bar." 
"  He  always  tried  a  case  fairly  and  honestly.  He  never 
intentionally  misrepresented  the  evidence  of  a  witness  or 
the  argument  of  an  opponent.  He  met  them  squarely, 
and  if  he  could  not  explain  the  one  or  answer  the  other, 
substantially  admitted  it.  He  never  misstated  the  law 
according  to  his  own  intelligent  view  of  it." 

Lincoln's  voice  was  not  sonorous,  and  at  times  it 
rose  to  a  high,  somewhat  shrill  key.  In  ordinary 
conversation  his  tones  were  agreeable,  and  his  enun- 
ciation clear.  When  excited,  in  speaking,  he  rose 
to  a  commanding  height,  so  that  one  aged  man  hear- 


130  Abraham  Lincoln 

ing  him  speak  from  a  political  platform,  for  the  first 
time  after  he  had  become  famed  in  his  own  State, 
said:  "He  seemed  to  be  about  twenty  foot  high!" 
At  such  times  Lincoln  no  longer  was  the  homely  and 
ungainly  man  that  he  was  reputed  to  be.  His  eyes 
flashed  fire;  his  appearance  underwent  a  change  as 
though  the  inspired  mind  had  transformed  the  body ; 
his  face,  darkened  with  malarial  influences  and 
seamed  with  the  wrinkles  of  premature  age,  was 
transfigured  with  that  mysterious  "inner  light" 
which  some  observers  have  said  reminded  them  of  a 
flame  glowing  within  a  half -transparent  vase.  To 
the  end  of  his  life  Lincoln  adhered  to  the  old-fash- 
ioned pronunciation  of  many  familiar  words.  With 
him  a  chair  was  a  "cheer";  legislature  was  "legis- 
latur,"  and  so  on.  In  presenting  a  close  argument 
he  would  stoop  over  towards  his  auditors,  lower  and 
lower,  until  he  had  got  to  the  point  where  the  demon- 
stration was  shot  home  upon  those  who  had  followed 
him.  Then,  with  a  sudden  jerk,  he  would  straighten 
himself  up,  as  somebody  has  said,  "like  a  jack- 
knife."  Unconscious  although  this  was,  it  was  very 
effective. 


CHAPTER  X. 

A   GREAT   AWAKENING. 

Stupor  Before  Excitement — A  Dead  Sea  of  Politics — Repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise — The  Migration  to  Kansas — Lincoln  and 
Douglas  Meet  Again — A  Memorable  Debate — Lincoln  Withdraws 
from  the  Canvass — Lyman  Trumbull  Elected  to  the  Senate. 

IN  1850  it  looked  to  the  eyes  of  most  men  that 
human  slavery  was  forever  fixed  in  this  country. 
Congress  had  passed  a  series  of  measures  that  were 
supposed  to  settle  everything,  but  which  satisfied 
neither  the  slave  States  nor  the  free  States,  although 
the  friends  of  human  freedom  were  deeply  discour- 
aged by  the  enactment  of  the  so-called  compromise. 
Mr.  W.  H.  Herndon  relates  that  as  he  and  Lincoln 
were  wayfaring  together  that  year  Lincoln  gloomily 
said:  "How  hard,  ah,  how  hard  it  is  to  die  and  leave 
one's  country  no  better  than  if  one  had  never  lived 
in  it!  The  world  is  dead  to  hope,  deaf  to  its  own 
death  struggle,  made  known  by  a  universal  cry. 
What  is  to  be  done  ?  Is  anything  to  be  done  ?  Who 
can  do  anything?  And  how  is  it  to  be  done?  Do 
you  ever  think  of  these  things?" 

In  that  year  Thomas  Lincoln  died.  Burdened 
with  many  cares,  Lincoln  could  not  go  to  see  his 
father,  who  was  reported  to  him  as  lying  very  low 
in  health.  To  the  ill-faring  step-brother,  John 

131 


132  Abraham  Lincoln 

Johnston,  Lincoln  wrote  while  his  father  was  yet 
alive : 

"  I  sincerely  hope  that  father  may  yet  recover  his 
health;  but,  at  all  events,  tell  him  to  remember  to  call 
upon  and  confide  in  our  good  and  great  and  merciful 
Father  and  Maker,  who  will  not  turn  away  from  him  in 
any  extremity.  He  notes  the  fall  of  the  sparrow,  and 
numbers  the  hairs  of  our  heads ;  and  he  will  not  forget  the 
dying  man  who  puts  his  trust  in  him.  Say  to  him  that, 
if  we  could  meet  now,  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  would  not 
be  more  painful  than  pleasant,  but  that  if  it  be  his  lot  to 
go  now,  he  will  soon  have  a  joyful  meeting  with  the  loved 
ones  gone  before,  and  where  the  rest  of  us,  through  the 
mercy  of  God,  hope  ere  long  to  join  them." 

In  1852  Lincoln  accepted  the  place  of  elector  on 
the  Whig  ticket  in  his  State.  As  he  was  wont  to  say, 
he  was  "a  standing  candidate  for  Whig  elector,  but 
seldom  elected  anybody."  This  time,  as  was  ex- 
pected, the  Whig  candidate  was  defeated,  and  the 
Democratic  nominee,  Franklin  Pierce,  was  chosen. 
Lincoln,  although  accepting  with  reluctance  the 
nomination  on  the  electoral  ticket  of  his  party,  took 
small  part  in  a  campaign  in  which  he  could  have  had 
no  heart.  His  party's  platform  had  closed  his  mouth 
on  the  only  subject  on  which  he  felt  very  deeply.  In 
fact,  the  whole  country  seemed  to  be  waiting  in 
dumb  silence  as  if  anticipating  the  storm  that  was 
brewing.  As  Lincoln  could  not  speak  on  the  slavery 
issue,  he  could  not  readily  find  other  topics  with 
which  the  people  could  be  stirred.  During  the  two 
years  next  succeeding  there  was  very  little  to  rouse 


A  Great  Awakening  133 

a  man  of  Lincoln's  warm  and  deep  emotional  nature. 
He  stuck  to  his  calling,  and  diligently  pursued  it, 
practising  at  Springfield  and  before  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  State. 

In  1854  came  the  great  awakening.  Once  more 
the  battle  was  to  be  fought  between  slavery  and 
freedom.  By  what  was  called  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise, enacted  in  1820,  slavery  was  put  forever  out 
of  the  Northwestern  Territory.  This  had  already 
been  secured  by  what  is  known  as  the  Ordinance  of 
1787 ;  but  when  Missouri  was  admitted  to  the  family 
of  States,  in  1820,  it  was  as  a  slave  State.  If  Mis- 
souri had  come  in  .as  a  free  State,  the  balance  of 
power  would  have  been  f  rever  after  with  the  free 
States.  By  the  compromise  under  which  Missouri 
came  in,  it  was  agreed  that  in  all  the  territory  north 
of  the  northern  boundary  of  that  State,  slavery 
should  be  forever  prohibited.  In  1854  the  new  Ter- 
ritories of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  were  knocking  at 
the  door  for  admittance.  As  these  lay  to  the  north 
of  Missouri  they  were  included  in  the  prohibition  of 
slavery.  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas,  Senator  from 
Illinois,  introduced  in  the  Senate  a  bill  organizing 
the  two  Territories,  and  leaving  the  question  of 
slavery  to  be  settled  by  the  voters  of  the  region. 
This  was  a  repeal  of  the  much -vaunted  Missouri  Com- 
promise, which  positively  prohibited  slavery  in  those 
Territories. 

Words  can  but  feebly  describe  the  excitement  that 
this  bold  and  unexpected  concession  to  the  slave 
States  created  throughout  the  North.  It  had  been 
thought  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  gave  slavery 


134  Abraham  Lincoln 

an  undue  advantage.  It  gave  that  accursed  institu- 
tion one  more  State.  To  repeal  it  now  would  be 
to  remove  the  barrier  that  pent  the  flood  of  slavery 
in  its  present  limits,  and  throw  open  to  it  an  area  as 
great  as  that  covered  by  the  thirteen  original  States. 
Amidst  the  most  intense  excitement,  Douglas's  bill 
was  finally  passed  through  Congress  on  the  8th  of 
May,  1854.  The  event  was  celebrated  by  the  boom- 
ing of  an  artillery  salute  fired  on  Capitol  Hill,  Wash- 
ington. That  boom  was  the  death-knell  of  slavery 
in  the  United  States. 

Instantly  the  whole  North  was  aflame.  Douglas 
was  everywhere  denounced  for  having  sold  his  birth- 
right as  a  free  man  for  a  mess  of  pottage.  It  was 
generally  believed  that  his  course  had  been  prompted 
by  a  desire  to  gain  the  support  of  the  slave  States  in 
his  plans  to  be  elected  President  of  the  republic. 
With  wonderful  skill  and  audacity,  he  defended  him- 
self from  the  attacks  that  were  rained  down  upon 
him.  He  insisted  that  the  popular  will  should  be 
sovereign,  and  that  that  will  should  determine 
whether  slavery  or  freedom  should  rule  in  each  com- 
munity. The  settlers  in  a  territory  were  called 
"squatters."  The  slavery  question,  under  the  new 
order  of  things,  was  to  be  left  to  them.  The  friends 
of  the  Douglas  programme  invented  as  a  watchword 
the  phrase  "squatter  sovereignty."  And  this,  with 
the  next  best  phrase,  "popular  sovereignty,"  was 
heard  in  every  political  discussion  from  one  end  of 
the  country  to  the  other. 

Then  began  a  race  to  take  possession  of  the  new 
Territory.  From  the  Northern  States  went  large 


A  Great  Awakening  135 

numbers  of  people  bent  on  being  early  on  the  ground 
to  occupy  the  soil  for  freedom;  and  from  the  slave 
States  migrated  others  equally  resolved  to  secure  the 
young  Territory  for  the  dominion  of  slavery.  Kan- 
sas, being  readiest  of  access,  received  the  full  volume 
of  the  wave  of  immigration.  The  free-State  men 
moved  from  the  Western  States  nearest;  northern 
Illinois  and  Iowa  more  especially  contributing  com- 
panies of  actual  settlers,  as  they  called  themselves, 
to  distinguish  themselves  from  those  who  were 
merely  temporary  occupants  of  the  promised  land. 
But  even  as  far  off  as  New  England  were  formed 
organizations  to  assist  those  who  would  go  to  help 
swell  the  free  population  of  Kansas.  Missouri  and 
Arkansas,  however,  both  slave  States,  and  both  hav- 
ing a  large  uneasy,  floating  population,  had  the  ad- 
vantage which  those  conditions  gave  them,  and  their 
people,  fired  with  a  determination  to  save  the  Terri- 
tory for  slavery,  swarmed  over  the  border.  These 
movements,  which  began  almost  as  soon  as  the  bill 
passed  Congress,  occupied  the  summer  of  that  year. 
Before  three  months  had  passed  "free-State  men" 
and  "proslavery  men"  had  become  familiar  words  all 
over  the  West. 

Lincoln,  placidly  engaged  in  his  customary  voca- 
tions, but  ever  watchful  of  the  progress  of  events, 
was  roused  to  tense  attentiveness.  He  was  still  a 
Whig  in  name,  but  the  Whig  party  was  dying.  From 
its  ruins  was  to  spring  a  new  and  vigorous  organiza- 
tion, to  the  leadership  of  which,  in  his  own  State, 
he  must  move. 

Congress  adjourned  in  August,  and  the  great  chiefs 


136  Abraham  Lincoln 

hurried  home,  astonished  by  the  angry  roar  that 
came  up  from  the  people  of  the  North.  Douglas, 
dismayed  by  the  burst  of  wrath  directed  against  him 
as  a  Northern  man  with  Southern  principles,  hast- 
ened to  Illinois,  confident  that,  with  his  crafty  logic 
and  audacious  declamation,  he  could  convince  the 
people  that  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  did  not  con- 
tain the  pernicious  and  destructive  influences  that 
they  believed  it  did.  In  Chicago,  where  he  first 
tarried,  his  constituents  refused  to  hear  him.  The 
walls  were  placarded  with  hostile  words  against  him, 
and  angry  denunciations  were  heaped  upon  him. 
He  was  not  permitted  to  speak,  and  he  went  on  to 
Springfield. 

Early  in  October,  1854,  the  great  agricultural  fair 
of  the  State,  at  which  men  were  wont  to  gather  from 
every  part  of  Illinois,  was  held  in  Springfield.  This 
was  Douglas's  opportunity,  and  he  eagerly  embraced 
it.  It  was  noised  abroad  that  Douglas  was  to  speak 
to  the  people  in  justification  of  his  course  and  in 
defence  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  By  common 
consent,  all  eyes  were  turned  to  Lincoln  as  the 
speaker  best  qualified  to  answer  the  plausible  and 
overbearing  Senator  from  Illinois.  The  day  came, 
and,  amidst  an  excitement  that  only  those  who 
witnessed  this  great  conflict  between  the  two  intel- 
lectual giants  of  the  West  can  fully  understand, 
Douglas  began  his  defence.  He  was  the  Democratic 
leader  of  the  West,  the  acknowledged  head  of  his 
party  in  the  North,  so  that  men  had  begun  to  call 
themselves  "Douglas  Democrats."  He  was  self- 
confident,  wilful,  at  times  arrogant  and  overbearing, 


A  Great  Awakening  137 

and  full  of  all  manner  of  guile  and  political  expedi- 
ents. He  had  already  spoken  in  various  parts  of  the 
State,  but  with  little  effect.  This  was  to  be  his 
supreme  effort.  No  report  of  the  speech  has  been 
preserved  to  us;  but  we  know  that  Douglas's  at- 
tempt to  make  it  appear  that  the  repeal  of  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  was  made  in  the  interest  of  the 
whole  people  and  not  in  the  interest  of  slavery  was 
ingenious,  plausible,  and  as  effective  as  it  could  have 
been  in  the  hands  of  any  living  man.  That  the  at- 
tempt was  vain  was  owing  to  the  immovable  fact 
that  the  repeal  did  open  to  slavery  territories  that 
had  been  closed  against  it. 

On  the  next  day  Lincoln  replied  to  Douglas.  All 
accounts  agree  in  saying  that  his  was  a  wonderful 
and  a  memorable  speech.  With  his  customary  fair- 
ness, he  said  that  he  did  not  wish  to  present  any- 
thing but  the  truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  that  if 
Mr.  Douglas,  who  was  present,  should  detect  him  in 
making  any  error  he  would  be  glad  to  be  corrected 
on  the  spot.  Douglas  availed  himself  of  this  invita- 
tion to  interrupt  Lincoln  frequently,  to  ask  him 
impertinent  questions,  and  endeavor  to  break  him 
down  by  distracting  his  thought  from  the  matter  in 
hand.  Finally  Lincoln  lost  patience,  severely  tried 
by  these  unfair  tactics,  and  said:  "Gentlemen,  I 
cannot  afford  to  spend  my  time  in  quibbles.  I  take 
the  responsibility  of  asserting  the  truth  myself,  re- 
lieving Judge  Douglas  from  the  necessity  of  his  im- 
pertinent corrections."  From  this  point  he  was 
allowed  to  speak  without  interruption  to  the  end  of 
his  speech,  which  occupied  three  hours  and  ten 


Abraham  Lincoln 

minutes  in  delivery.  The  sensation  produced  by 
this  speech,  so  convincing,  so  powerful  in  its  logic, 
and  so  tremendous  in  its  array  of  facts  and  argu- 
ments, was  indescribable.  At  last  the  lion  had  been 
roused.  Stung  by  the  superciliousness  and  pre- 
tended contempt  as  well  as  by  the  dishonest  course 
of  Douglas  towards  him,  Lincoln  rose  to  the  occasion 
and  spoke  as  he  never  spoke  before.  The  enthusiasm 
of  his  audience  was  raised  to  fever  heat.  It  is  a 
misfortune  that  we  have  no  report  of  that  first  great 
speech  of  his  life.  But  contemporary  criticism  re- 
mains. The  Springfield  Journal,  next  day,  said: 

"Lincoln  quivered  with  feeling  and  emotion.  The 
whole  house  was  as  still  as  death.  He  attacked  the  bill 
with  unusual  warmth  and  energy,  and  all  felt  that  a  man 
of  strength  was  its  enemy,  and  that  he  meant  to  blast  it 
if  he  could  by  strong  and  manly  efforts.  He  was  most 
successful ;  and  the  house  approved  the  glorious  triumph 
of  truth  by  loud  and  long-continued  huzzas.  Women 
waved  their  white  handkerchiefs  in  token  of  woman's 
silent  but  heartfelt  consent."  "Mr.  Lincoln  exhibited 
Douglas  in  all  the  attitudes  he  could  be  placed  in  a  friendly 
debate.  He  exhibited  the  bill  in  all  its  aspects  to  show  its 
humbuggery  and  falsehoods,  and  when  thus  torn  to  rags, 
cut  into  slips,  held  up  to  the  gaze  of  the  vast  crowd,  a 
kind  of  scorn  was  visible  upon  the  face  of  the  crowd,  and 
upon  the  lips  of  the  most  eloquent  speaker."  "At  the 
conclusion  of  the  speech,  every  man  felt  that  it  was  un- 
answerable— that  no  human  power  could  overthrow  it  or 
trample  it  tinder  foot.  The  long  and  repeated  applause 
evinced  the  feelings  of  the  crowd,  and  gave  token,  too,  of 
the  universal  assent  to  Lincoln's  whole  argument;  and 
every  mind  present  did  homage  to  the  man  who  took 


A  Great  Awakening  139 

captive  the  heart  and  broke  like  a  sun  over  the  under- 
standing." 

It  was  in  the?  course  of  this  famous  address  that 
Lincoln  uttered  one  of  those  pithy  sayings  of  his 
which  have  since  been  identified  with  his  name. 
Douglas  dwelt  long  and  ingeniously  on  his  favorite 
doctrine  that  the  right  to  introduce  human  slavery 
into  a  territory  or  community,  by  vote  of  the  people, 
was  acknowledgment  of  the  right  of  popular  sover- 
eignty. He  insisted  that  it  was  an  insult  to  the  emi- 
grants to  Kansas  and  Nebraska  to  intimate  that  they 
were  not  able  to  govern  themselves,  voting  slavery 
in  or  out  as  they  chose.  Replying  to  this  Lincoln 
said:  "I  admit  that  the  emigrant  to  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  is  competent  to  govern  himself;  but" — 
and  here  the  speaker  rose  to  his  full  and  towering 
height — "I  deny  his  right  to  govern  any  other  person 
without  that  person's  consent."  That  was  the  vital 
point  in  the  whole  matter.  It  showed  the  fallacy 
and  the  sophistry  of  so-called  popular  sovereignty. 
Douglas  would  not  recognize  the  inherent  wicked- 
ness and  wrongfulness  of  slavery.  Lincoln  did. 

Perhaps  we  shall  understand  both  of  these  men 
and  motives  better  by  accepting  what  Lincoln  said 
some  time  later  in  this  debate;  for  Lincoln  was  un- 
doubtedly just  to  Douglas.  He  said,  speaking  of 
Douglas's  remark  that  this  government  was  made 
for  the  white  man,  and  not  for  the  negro : 

"  Why,  in  point  of  fact,  I  think  so  too ;  but  in  this  remark 
of  Judge  Douglas  there  is  a  significance  which  I  think  is 
the  key  to  the  great  mistake  (if  there  is  any  such  mistake) 


140  Abraham  Lincoln 

which  he  has  made  in  this  Nebraska  measure.  It  shows 
that  the  Judge  has  no  vivid  impression  that  the  negro  is  a 
human ;  and,  consequently,  has  no  idea  that  there  can  be 
any  moral  question  in  legislating  about  him.  In  his  view 
the  question  whether  a  new  country  shall  be  slave  or  free 
is  a  matter  of  as  utter  indifference  as  it  is  whether  his 
neighbor  shall  plant  his  farm  with  tobacco  or  stock  it 
with  horned  cattle." 

At  the  close  of  Lincoln's  speech  Douglas  felt  that 
he  was  crushed.  Excited,  angry,  and  with  lowering 
brows,  he  took  the  platform  and  said  that  he  had 
been  abused.  Then,  as  if  seeing  that  the  vast  au- 
dience before  him  would  detect  the  misstatement, 
for  they  had  paid  close  attention  to  all  that  had 
been  said,  he  added,  "but  in  a  perfectly  courteous 
manner."  He  then  attempted  to  make  some  reply 
to  Lincoln's  masterly  and  unanswerable  speech.  He 
faltered,  then  plucked  up  enough  bravado  to  say 
that  he  would  continue  his  address  in  the  evening. 
When  evening  came,  Douglas  was  not  there,  and  the 
remarks  promised  were  never  made. 

Lincoln  had  agreed  to  speak  in  Peoria,  111.,  on 
Monday,  October  i6th.  Thither  Douglas  followed 
him,  as  if  determined  to  see  his  own  annihilation. 
Douglas  spoke  for  three  hours  in  the  afternoon,  and 
Lincoln  followed  in  the  evening,  speaking  three 
hours  also.  The  result  was  the  same  as  at  Spring- 
field. Lincoln's  speech  was  materially  different,  but 
it  was,  as  subsequently  written  out  by  him,  more 
skilful  and  elaborate  in  its  treatment  of  the  great 
question.  Those  who  heard  both  of  these  memo- 
rable addresses  have  said  that  the  Peoria  speech, 


A  Great  Awakening  141 

while  perfect  in  its  construction,  a  marvel  of  logical 
force,  was  not  so  stirring  as  that  delivered  at  Spring- 
field. It  was,  however,  distinguished  above  all 
others  for  its  manifestation  of  a  full  and  exhaustive 
knowledge  of  the  slavery  question  and  of  all  that 
had  at  that  time  grown  out  of  it.  Probably  no  other 
man  then  living  could  have  produced  so  complete 
and  comprehensive  a  view  of  the  subject  presented, 
both  as  to  itself  and  its  collateral  branches. 

At  the  close  of  this  speech,  Douglas"  said  to  Lin- 
coln: "You  understand  this  question  of  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  Territories  better  than  all  the  opposi- 
tion in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  I  cannot 
make  anything  by  debating  it  with  you.  You,  Lin- 
coln, have,  here  and  at  Springfield,  given  me  more 
trouble  than  all  the  opposition  in  the  Senate  com- 
bined." He  then  appealed  to  Lincoln's  magnanim- 
ity, as  we  are  told  by  at  least  one  historian  (Mr.W.  H. 
Herndon),  to  agree  that  there  should  be  no  more 
joint  discussions,  and  to  this  Lincoln  assented.  It 
is  likely,  however,  that  some  other  motive  was  pre- 
sented to  move  Lincoln's  mind  to  this  agreement. 
At  any  rate,  although  they  had  appointed  one  more 
joint  debate,  it  was  not  held,  and  both  withdrew  for 
the  time,  being. 

The  Legislature  elected  that  year  was  to  choose  a 
successor  to  James  Shields,  then  a  Senator  from 
Illinois,  a  Democratic  colleague  with  Douglas.  This 
was  the  same  belligerent  Shields  who,  some  years 
before,  had  proposed  to  fight  a  duel  with  the  young 
lawyer  Lincoln.  He  was  a  candidate  for  re-election, 
but  Lincoln's  bout  with  Douglas,  and  the  fierce 


i42  Abraham  Lincoln 

excitement  that  swept  the  country,  had  endangered 
his  chances.  It  is  not  certain,  perhaps,  whether  the 
friendship  of  Douglas  or  the  opposition  of  Lincoln 
was  the  more  destructive  of  Shields's  chances  for  a 
renewal  of  his  term  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States.  Fortunately  for  the  Democrats,  they  had 
several  senators  in  the  Legislature  of  the  State 
whose  terms  would  not  expire  until  the  following 
year;  otherwise,  the  Legislature  would  have  been 
revolutionized;  but,  in  the  various  composite  ele- 
ments in  the  Legislature,  there  was  a  clear  majority 
of  two  against  Douglas,  or,  rather,  against  any  'man 
that  had  Douglas's  advocacy.  Lincoln  led  the  oppo- 
sition, and,  by  general  consent,  was  selected  as  can- 
didate for  the  Senate  against  Shields.  The  two 
old-time  antagonists  had  met  again.  When  the 
Legislature  came  together  the  anti-Douglas  men 
were  not  united.  Lyman  Trumbull,  an  able  lawyer 
and  accomplished  debater,  was  one  of  the  candi- 
dates of  the  opponents  of  Douglas  men ;  Lincoln  was 
the  other.  On  the  first  ballot  Lincoln  received  forty- 
five  votes,  Trumbull  five,  and  Shields  forty -one,  and 
there  were  some  scattering  votes.  Repeated  ballot- 
ings  produced  no  other  result,  until  Joel  A.  Matteson, 
Democrat,  had  been  substituted  for  Shields,  who  was 
withdrawn.  On  the  tenth  ballot,  Lincoln  having 
besought  his  friends  to  go  for  Trumbull,  or  Matteson 
would  assuredly  be  elected,  Trumbull  received  fifty- 
one  votes,  Matteson  forty -seven,  and  one  vote  was 
cast  for  a  man  who  was  not  a  candidate.  Thus  the 
contest  terminated  by  the  election  of  a  man  who  was 
inflexibly  opposed  to  the  Douglas  policy,  and  who, 


A  Great  Awakening  143 

later  on,  was  to  be  a  conspicuous  figure  in  the  Senate 
during  Lincoln's  Presidential  term.  To  Lincoln's 
unselfish  devotion  to  principle  was  this  triumphant 
success  of  the  new  spirit  of  the  freemen  of  Illinois 
largely  due.  He  ardently  desired  the  senatorial 
office,  for  he  felt  that  in  it  he  could  accomplish  great 
things  for  free  government.  He  relinquished  all  his 
chances,  and  implored  his  friends,  who  were  many 
and  steadfast,  to  leave  him  and  vote  for  Trumbull, 
rather  than  endanger  the  cause  in  which  they  were 
all  so  deeply  concerned.  This  generous  concession 
solidified  the  jarring  elements  of  the  new  party  and 
made  its  after-successes  possible.  Nor  is  this  gener- 
osity lessened  by  the  fact  that  Judge  Trumbull  had 
never  been  the  political  friend  of  Lincoln,  but  his 
opponent,  and  sometimes  his  unfriendly  critic. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE   KANSAS    STRUGGLE. 

Freedom  and  Slavery  Wrestle  with  Each  Other — "Bleeding  Kansas" 
— The  Troubler  of  Slave-Owners — The  Irrepressible  Conflict — 
Lincoln's  Slowness  and  Reticence. 

MEANWHILE,  immigrants  from  free  States  and 
slave  States  were  pouring  into  Kansas.  In 
spite  of  the  incursions  of  the  proslavery  men,  the 
hardy  immigrants  from  Iowa,  northern  Illinois,  and 
New  England  were  clearly  in  the  majority.  Some^ 
thing  must  be  done  to  stem  this  tide  and  to  turn  it 
back  upon  the  free  States.  Violence  was  readily 
resorted  to.  The  swashbucklers  who  trooped  over 
the  border  from  Missouri  and  Arkansas  were  as  ready 
to  stuff  ballot-boxes  with  fraudulent  votes  and  mob 
free-State  men  as  they  were  to  vote.  One  thing 
they  would  not  do — work.  The  free-State  men  were 
indeed  actual  settlers.  They  took  up  land,  planted 
crops,  and  built  log  cabins  for  their  families,  evi- 
dently intending  to  stay.  The  borderers,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  rough  riders,  sportsmen,  gamblers. 
They  spent  their  time  in  drinking,  shooting,  scouring 
the  country  for  prey,  and  terrifying  helpless  women 
and  children.  One  of  their  favorite  expressions  was 
that  they  "would  make  it  hot  for  any  Abolitionist," 
and  another  was  that  they  "would  cut  the  heart  out 
of  any  man  who  voted  the  Abolition  ticket."  Ag- 


The  Kansas  Struggle  H5 

gressiveness  like  this  soon  engendered  hatreds.  The 
proslavery  men  were  known  as  "border  ruffians," 
and  the  free-State  men  were  commonly  called 
"Abolitioners." 

Under  the  lead  of  the  notorious  "Dave"  Atchison 
of  Missouri,  a  Senator  of  the  United  States,  secret 
societies,  known  as  "Blue  Lodges,"  were  formed  for 
the  purpose  of  ridding  the  country  of  the  hated  free- 
State  men.  Steamers  bound  up  the  Missouri  River, 
laden  with  free -State  immigrants  and  their  movable 
property,  were  stopped  by  these  ruffians,  who 
swarmed  on  board,  drove  off  the  immigrants,  put 
their  cattle  and  goods  ashore,  and  compelled  the 
officers  of  the  steamers,  who  were  only  too  willing 
to  be  an  unresisting  party  to  this  outrage,  to  go  on 
and  leave  their  passengers  behind.  The  border  ruf- 
fians had  on  their  side  the  influence  of  the  United 
States  officials,  the  Missouri  State  government,  and 
the  State  militia.  They  rode  across  the  border, 
burning  fields  of  grain  and  cabins  of  the  free-State 
men,  killing  or  running  off  their  animals,  and  devas- 
tating the  country  for  miles  around.  Under  the 
leadership  of  Atchison  and  another  of  his  kidney, 
one  Stringfellow,  raids  were  planned  for  long  forays 
into  the  Territory,  the  raiders  returning  into  Missouri 
under  the  cover  of  the  night,  or  camping  in  secluded 
places  along  the  border,  ready  for  another  excursion. 
On  the  free-State  side  were  such  men  as  "Jim"  Lane, 
afterward  a  Senator  from  Kansas,  and  a  redoubt- 
able fighter;  John  Brown,  then  called  Ossawattomie 
Brown,  from  his  pitching  his  tent  on  the  Kansas 
stream  of  that  name;  Charles  Robinson,  afterward 


146  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  Governor  of  the  free  State;  Silas  C.  Pomeroy, 
afterward  Senator  from  the  new  State;  and  others 
whose  names  are  gratefully  remembered  by  the  early 
settlers  of  that  dark  and  troublous  time. 

When  the  local  elections  came  on,  the  border  ruf- 
fians showed  that  they  were  more  than  a  match  for 
the  law-abiding  and  orderly  free-State  men.  These 
were  astounded  by  the  audacity  and  coolness  with 
which  the  border  men  took  possession  of  the  polls, 
voted  as  often  as  they  pleased,  and  carried  things 
generally  with  a  high  hand.  In  one  instance,  for 
example,  the  borderers  brought  with  them  a  direc- 
tory of  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  and  put  page  after  page 
of  names  from  that  book  upon  the  poll-list,  with 
votes  for  the  proslavery  candidates  for  office  and 
for  slavery,  in  precincts  where  there  were  but  few 
votes.  In  another  precinct,  they  formed  a  lane  of 
their  gangs,  leading  up  to  the  door  of  the  log  cabin 
where  the  ballot-box  was  put.  When  the  voter 
approached,  he  was  obliged  to  show  his  ballot ;  if  it 
was  for  slavery,  he  was  permitted  to  deposit  it  in  the 
box ;  if  not,  he  was  jocularly  lifted  to  the  roof  of  the 
cabin,  where  a  squad  of  stalwart  men  received  him, 
hurried  him  over  the  ridge-pole,  and  slid  him  down 
on  the  other  side,  when  he  was  permitted  to  escape, 
glad  to  get  away  with  his  life.  Outrages  like  these 
were  committed  every  day,  and  in  more  than  one  in- 
stance, death  followed  the  least  resistance  to  tyranny. 

Massacres  were  frequent,  and  the  soil  of  the  un- 
happy young  Territory  was  literally  wet  with  blood. 
The  watchword  "Bleeding  Kansas,"  which  was  de- 
rided then  and  afterward  by  the  friends  of  slavery, 


The  Kansas  Struggle  147 

described  in  a  terse  phrase  the  condition  of  the  region 
where  the  battle  of  freedom  was  being  fought.  In 
these  disturbances,  a  son  of  Ossawattomie  Brown 
was  slain,  and  the  father  made  a  vow  to  avenge  on 
slavery  the  death  of  his  son.  Ruined  homesteads 
were  to  be  seen  on  every  hand,  and  for  a  time  the 
borderers,  with  the  National  Government  at  their 
back  and  the  militia  troops  of  Missouri  within  as- 
sisting distance,  carried  the  day.  Slavery  was 
"voted  up"  by  such  means  as  have  been  described, 
and  a  government  was  established  on  the  basis  of 
the  right  of  any  man  to  own  human  beings  in  the 
new  territory  of  Kansas.  The  story  of  these  shame- 
ful wrongs  and  outrages  was  spread  abroad  and 
made  a  profound  impression  all  over  the  country. 
But  the  raiders  did  not  stay  on  the  soil  they  had 
apparently  conquered  for  slavery.  They  went  back 
to  their  haunts  on  the  Missouri  side  of  the  border, 
and  after  a  while  the  institution  for  which  they 
had  committed  so  many  crimes  grew  more  and 
more  feeble.  The  slaves  ran  away,  for  there  were 
free  States  near  at  hand  where  they  could  hide, 
and  pursuit  in  so  unsettled  a  condition  of  the 
country  was  almost  hopeless.  President  Pierce,  and 
President  Buchanan  after  him,  appointed  governor 
after  governor.  The  Territory  must  be  saved  to 
slavery;  but  this  was  more  than  any  governor  could 
accomplish.  And  when  the  exactions  of  the  pro- 
slavery  party  at  Washington  became  more  oppres- 
sive, each  governor  resigned  and  went  home.  Kan- 
sas was  grimly  called  "the  graveyard  of  territorial 
governors." 


148  Abraham  Lincoln 

All  this  time  Kansas  was  merely  a  Territory,  sub- 
ject to  the  rule  of  Congress,  and  governed  by  officers 
appointed  by  the  President — not  by  men  elected  by 
the  people.  The  time  would  come  when  the  Temtory 
must  be  admitted  into  the  family  of  States,  and  be 
allowed  to  choose  its  own  Legislature,  governor,  and 
other  officers.  Slavery  must  be  fixed  upon  the 
people  before  that  time  arrived.  The  free-State 
men,  in  their  desperation,  organized  a  State  govern- 
ment, framed  a  constitution  with  slavery  left  out, 
and  elected  a  Governor,  Charles  Robinson.  They 
established  their  State  capital  at  Topeka.  The 
regular  territorial  Legislature  and  seat  of  govern- 
ment were  established  at  Lecompton.  To  say  that 
Lincoln's  heart  was  stirred  by  the  daily  report  of 
outrages  committed  in  Kansas,  for  the  sake  of 
slavery,  feebly  expresses  the  indignation  with  which 
he  was  inflamed.  Yet,  cool  and  calm,  logical  and 
shrewd,  as  he  always  was,  he  made  no  inflammatory 
speeches,  and  showed  in  public  no  signs  of  the  ex- 
citement that  reigned  within.  About  that  time,  he 
wrote  a  letter  to  his  well-beloved  friend  Joshua 
Speed,  of  Kentucky — one  who  not  only  lived  in  a 
slave  State,  but  was  still  attached  to  the  interests  of 
slavery.  The  following  extract  indicates  the  posi- 
tion which  these  two  friends  then  held  towards 
slavery  in  Kansas : 

"  You  say  if  Kansas  fairly  votes  herself  a  free  State,  as  a 
Christian  you  will  rather  rejoice  at  it.  All  decent  slave- 
holders talk  that  way,  and  I  do  not  doubt  their  candor. 
But  they  never  vote  that  way.  Although  in  a  private 
letter  or  conversation  you  will  express  your  preference 


The  Kansas  Struggle  149 

that  Kansas  shall  be  free,  you  would  vote  for  no  man  for 
Congress  who  would  say  the  same  thing  publicly.  No 
such  man  could  be  elected,  from  any  district  of  any  slave 
State.  You  think  Stringfellow  &  Co.  ought  to  be  hung; 
and  yet  you  will  vote  for  the  exact  type  and  representa- 
tive of  Stringfellow.  The  slave-breeders  and  slave- 
traders  are  a  small  and  detested  class  among  you,  and  yet 
in  politics  they  dictate  the  course  of  all  of  you,  and  are  as 
completely  your  masters  as  you  are  the  masters  of  your 
own  negroes." 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  setting  up  of  the  Kansas  in- 
famy, Lincoln  was  still  reckoned  as  a  Whig.  That 
party,  to  be  sure,  was  in  a  dying  condition.  But  no 
new  party  had  been  formed  to  take  its  place,  or  to 
receive  those  who  were  to  come  out  from  it.  The 
election  of  Trumbull,  as  Senator  from  Illinois,  was 
the  only  election  of  a  Democrat  who  was  opposed  to 
the  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill.  It  astonished  the  friends 
of  Douglas,  who  had  not  believed  that  the  opposition 
could  accomplish  anything  so  formidable  as  this. 
But,  after  all,  the  defeat  of  Lincoln  showed  that 
there  was  only  a  split  in  the  Democratic  party,  as 
men  then  regarded  the  political  situation.  What 
did  Lincoln  propose  to  do  about  slavery?  Would 
he  abolish  it  altogether,  and  so  put  an  end  to  this 
everlasting  agitation?  He  was  shrewd  enough  to 
know  that  the  country  could  no  longer  live  in  peace 
half  slave  and  half  free.  There  was  no  doubt  that 
he  would  do  whatever  he  could  to  prevent  the  fur- 
ther extension  of  slavery  into  Territories  that  were 
hereafter  to  become  States.  But  he  knew  that 
slavery,  confined  to  the  States  in  which  it  existed, 


150  Abraham  Lincoln 

would  swell,  and  chafe,  and  threaten  continually  to 
break  over  its  bounds.  In  the  speech  delivered  at 
Peoria,  in  October,  1854,  Lincoln  said: 

"  If  all  earthly  power  were  given  me,  I  should  not  know 
what  to  do  as  to  the  existing  institution.  My  first  impulse 
would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves  and  send  them  to  Liberia — 
to  their  own  native  land.  But,  if  they  were  all  landed 
there  in  a  day,  they  would  all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days ; 
and  there  is  not  surplus  shipping  and  surplus  money 
enough  to  carry  them  there  in  many  times  ten  days. 
What  then?" 

This  was  a  question  that  Lincoln  could  not  answer. 
But,  it  must  be  remembered,  this  was  in  1854. 

To  those  who  know  what  Lincoln  did  when  he 
became  President,  and  who  know  how  slavery  came 
to  an  end  during  his  term  in  the  Presidential  office, 
his  reluctance  to  join  what  was  at  that  time  known 
as  the  Abolition  party  may  seem  difficult  of  ex- 
planation. But  Lincoln  was  a  statesman.  If  he 
could  have  had  supreme  power,  as  he  expressed  it, 
he  would  have  undoubtedly  made  the  slaves  free. 
But,  as  he  did  not  have  that  power,  it  was  his  mis- 
sion, clearly,  to  move  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  to 
pass,  as  soon  as  might  be,  the  time  when  slaves 
should  be  freed  without  violence,  if  possible,  and 
certainly  without  war.  At  once,  as  we  have  seen, 
he  took  his  stand  against  any  further  extension  of 
slavery.  He  knew  better,  probably,  than  anybody 
else  did  that  if  slavery  were  shut  out  of  the  Terri- 
tories it  would,  in  the  course  of  time,  die  of  itself. 
As  he  repeatedly  expressed  it,  we  could  not  exist 


The  Kansas  Struggle  151 

as  a  nation  half  slave  and  half  free.  "A  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand."  Now,  how- 
ever, the  old  Whig  party  was  in  ruins.  A  new 
party,  pledged  to  oppose  all  further  extension  of 
slavery,  was  to  rise  and  assert  itself.  It  may  be 
said  that  this  party  occupied  a  middle  ground  be- 
tween the  Democratic  party  (pledged  as  that  was, 
in  fact,  to  the  support  of  slavery)  and  the  Abolition- 
ists, pledged  to  destroy  slavery  instantly  and  by 
every  possible  means. 

It  must  be  apparent,  then,  to  any  one  who  has 
followed  this  history,  that  Lincoln  was  the  natural 
leader  of  the  Free-Soil  party.  In  no  other  part  of 
the  country  could  be  found  any  man  who  had  so 
carefully  studied  the  question  of  American  slavery, 
as  it  was  related  to  our  system  of  government  and  to 
the  political  parties  of  the  time,  as  Lincoln.  More- 
over, he  was  animated  by  a  sincere  love  of  liberty, 
and  he  was  a  shrewd  and  even  cunning  politician. 
As  we  have  seen,  he  was  early  in  politics,  having 
amused  himself  with  these  matters  from  his  boy- 
hood. Not  at  once,  however,  did  he  take  the  place 
of  leader.  Not  at  once  did  he  throw  in  his  fortunes 
with  those  who  were  to  be  the  leaders  of  the  new 
Free-Soil  party.  He  always  moved  slowly  and  with 
a  deliberation  that  deceived  many  and  annoyed  not 
a  few.  They  thought  him  too  slow,  over-cautious, 
even  waiting  to  see  which  was  to  be  the  winning 
side.  Nothing  could  be  more  unjust.  Much  of  his 
supposed  hesitancy  was  to  wait  the  inevitable  con- 
sequence of  events.  And  it  will  help  us  to  a  better 
understanding  of  Lincoln's  purposes  if  we  bear  in 


152  Abraham  Lincoln 

mind  that,  from  the  first,  he  saw  that  a  conflict  of 
some  kind  was  sure  to  come.  But  the  time  came 
when  he  took  his  final  stand  and  declared  that  he 
must  thenceforth  be  the  champion  of  freedom 
against  slavery  until,  to  use  his  own  memorable 
words,  "the  sun  shall  shine,  the  rain  shall  fall,  and 
the  wind  shall  blow  upon  no  man  who  goes  forth  to 
unrequited  toil." 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    COMING   MAN. 

Birth  of  the  Republican  Party — Nomination  of  Fremont — The  Party 
Lines  Drawn — A  Virulent  Campaign — Election  of  James  Bu- 
chanan— Kansas  Reluctant  to  Consent  to  Slavery. 

A  CONVENTION  of  men  opposed  to  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  measure  was  called  to  meet  in 
Bloomington,  Illinois,  May  29,  1856.  It  was  a  meet- 
ing, in  fact,  of  such  persons  residing  in  Illinois  as 
were  opposed  to  the  further  extension  of  slavery. 
Naturally  the  assemblage  was  made  up  of  men  who 
were  divided  on  many  of  the  minor  questions  re- 
lating to  the  conflict  of  slavery  and  freedom,  and,  in 
fact,  it  soon  became  evident  that  they  could  not 
unite  on  any  declaration  of  principles  beyond  that 
of  hostility  to  slavery  and  all  measures  for  its  ex- 
tension, without  much  difficulty.  Lincoln  was  sent 
for,  and,  finding  the  managers  of  this  mass-meeting 
in  trouble,  he  proposed  the  following.  He  said: 
"Let  us,  in  building  our  new  party,  make  our  corner- 
stone the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Let  us 
build  on  this  rock,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  us."  This  simple  and  sufficient 
"platform"  met  the  approval  of  all  who  heard  it. 
The  convention,  if  it  may  be  dignified  by  that  name, 
adopted  the  following  resolution,  which  was  only  an 
expansion  of  Lincoln's  idea: 

'S3 


i54  Abraham  Lincoln 

"Resolved,  That  we  hold,  in  accordance  with  the 
opinions  and  practices  of  all  the  great  statesmen  of  all 
parties  for  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  administration  of 
the  government,  that,  tinder  the  Constitution,  Congress 
possesses  full  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories ; 
and  that,  while  we  will  maintain  all  constitutional  rights 
of  the  South,  we  also  hold  that  justice,  humanity,  the 
principles  of  freedom,  as  expressed  in  our  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  our  national  Constitution,  and  the 
purity  and  perpetuity  of  our  government  require  that  that 
power  should  be  exerted  to  prevent  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  Territories  heretofore  free." 

The  Republican  party  was  born. 

Rising  in  the  midst  of  that  convention,  which  was 
an  assembly  vast  in  proportions,  of  the  most  ardent 
friends  of  freedom  and  some  of  the  ablest  leaders  of 
public  opinion,  Lincoln  made  a  masterly  speech, 
kindling,  thrilling,  and  stimulating.  Like  so  many 
of  his  earlier  addresses  in  the  cause  of  Republican 
institutions,  no  report  of  the  speech  has  been  left 
us.  One  who  was  present  at  the  meeting  says  of  the 
address : 

"  Never  was  an  audience  more  completely  electrified  by 
human  eloquence.  Again  and  again,  during  the  progress 
of  its  delivery,  they  sprang  to  their  feet  and  upon  the 
benches,  and  testified,  by  long-continued  shouts  and  the 
waving  of  hats,  how  deeply  the  speaker  had  wrought  upon 
their  minds  and  hearts.  It  fused  the  mass  of  hitherto 
incongruous  elements  into  perfect  homogeneity,  and-  from 
that  day  to  the  present  they  have  worked  together  in 
harmonious  and  fraternal  union." 

Similar   proceedings   had   taken    place   in    other 


The  Coming  Man  155 

States,  each  State  organizing  its  party  for  freedom 
in  its  own  way.  The  first  national  convention  of  the 
Republican  party  met  in  Philadelphia,  June  17, 
1856.  John  Charles  Fre'mont,  of  California,  was 
nominated  for  President,  and  William  L.  Dayton,  of 
New  Jersey,  for  Vice -President.  Lincoln's  Illinois 
friends,  ever  on  the  lookout  for  a  chance  to  promote 
what  they  thought  were  his  interests,  made  an 
effort  to  have  him  made  the  candidate  for  Vice- 
President.  Mr.  Dayton  received  259  votes  and  Lin- 
coln no  votes,  there  being  many  votes  scattered 
among  leading  members  of  the  new  party.  When 
Lincoln,  who  remained  in  Springfield,  heard  of  the 
votes  cast  for  "Lincoln"  for  Vice-President,  he  said, 
unconscious  of  his  growing  fame,  "That  is  probably 
the  distinguished  Mr.  Lincoln  of  Massachusetts." 

The  Democratic  convention,  in  the  meantime,  had 
met  in  Cincinnati,  June  2,  1856,  and  had  nominated 
James  Buchanan,  of  Pennsylvania,  for  President, 
and  John  C.  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky,  for  Vice- 
President.  Douglas,  Lincoln's  frequent  adversary, 
had  reason  to  expect  that  he  might  be  named  for 
the  Presidency  as  a  reward  for  his  advocacy  of 
measures  designed  to  carry  slavery  into  the  new 
Territories.  This  honor  was  denied  him.  On  the 
sixteenth  and  next  to  the  last  ballot,  Buchanan  re- 
ceived 1 68  votes,  of  which  121  were  from  the  free 
States,  and  47  were  from  the  slave  States.  Douglas 
received  122  votes,  of  which  49  were  from  free  States, 
and  73  from  slave  States.  The  Republican  party, 
in  their  platform  of  principles,  denied  the  authority 
of  Congress,  or  of  any  Territorial  Legislature,  of  any 


156  Abraham  Lincoln 

individual  or  association  of  individuals,  to  give  legal 
existence  to  slavery  in  any  Territory  of  the  United 
States.  They  furthermore  declared  that  "the  Con- 
stitution confers  upon  Congress  sovereign  power 
over  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  for  their 
government,"  and  that  in  the  exercise  of  that  power 
it  is  both  the  right  and  the  duty  of  Congress  to  pro- 
hibit in  the  Territories  ' '  those  twin  relics  of  barbarism 
— polygamy  and  slavery."  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Democratic  convention  adopted  a  skilfully  worded 
platform  of  principles,  the  verbiage  of  which  was 
designed  to  conceal  ideas.  The  time  for  outspoken 
utterances  on  the  all-absorbing  subject  of  slavery 
evidently  had  not  come.  But  the  platform  was  an 
unmistakable  indorsement  of  the  doctrine  that  the 
people  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska  could,  as  Douglas 
had  said,  vote  slavery  up  or  down,  as  they  chose. 
The  lines  between  the  two  parties  were,  after  all, 
pretty  sharply  drawn. 

There  was  a  third  party  in  the  field  that  year;  its 
members  calling  themselves  the  American  party, 
their  principal  article  of  faith  being  the  restriction 
of  the  right  to  vote  to  native-born  citizens,  to  a 
great  degree,  foreigners  being  allowed  to  use  that 
right  very  sparingly.  The  American  party  nomi- 
nated Fillmore  and  Donelson,  Mr.  Fillmore  being  the 
Vice -President  who  had  succeeded  to  the  Presiden- 
tial office  on  the  death  of  General  Taylor.  There 
were,  of  course,  many  Whigs  who  did  not  see  that 
their  party  was  dead;  and  these  were  relied  on  to 
vote  for  Fillmore,  who  was  elected  with  Taylor  on 
the  Whig  ticket  in  1848. 


The  Coming  Man  157 

Lincoln,  as  usual,  was  an  elector  from  his  State, 
being  at  the  head  of  the  Republican  electoral  ticket 
in  Illinois.  He  took  an  active  part  in  the  canvass, 
speaking  from  one  end  of  the  State  to  the  other, 
almost  continually,  through  the  summer  of  1856. 
His  speeches  were  remarkable  for  their  clearness, 
closeness  of  logic,  and  merciless  dissection  of  the 
arguments  and  measures  of  the  proslavery  Democ- 
racy under  the  local  leadership  of  Douglas.  There 
was  much  material  for  the  exercise  of  his  peculiar 
powers.  The  South  and  their  Democratic  allies  in 
the  North  were  forcing  slavery  into  the  Territories, 
and  the  work  of  their  creatures  in  Kansas  had 
deluged  that  region  with  blood.  At  that  very  time 
the  fair  young  Territory  was  torn  and  wounded  with 
civil  war.  There  was  a  determination  to  compel  the 
people  of  the  Territory  to  adopt  slavery  as  the  rule, 
although,  under  Douglas's  specious  plea  of  popular 
sovereignty,  the  question  was  to  be  left  to  the  whole 
people  to  choose  between  free  institutions  and  slav- 
ery. During  this  campaign,  while  Lincoln  was 
speaking  in  one  of  the  southern  counties  of  the 
State,  where  the  proslavery  sentiment  was  yet 
strong,  a  man  in  the  audience  called  out  to  him: 
"Mr.  Lincoln,  is  it  true  that  you  entered  this  State 
barefoot,  driving  a  yoke  of  oxen?"  Lincoln  paused 
for  an  instant,  as  if  at  a  loss  whether  to  take  notice 
of  a  question  so  impertinent  and  so  evidently  mali- 
cious, and  then  said  that  he  presumed  that  there 
were  at  least  a  dozen  men  in  the  crowd  before  him 
by  whom  he  could  prove  that  he  did,  if  this  were 
needful  to  the  case  in  hand.  But,  as  usual  when  he 


158  Abraham  Lincoln 

was  interrupted,  he  gathered  new  force  from  the 
cruelty  of  the  attempt  to  disconcert  him,  and,  rising 
to  his  full  height,  he  described  with  glowing  elo- 
quence what  freedom  had  done  for  him,  what  it  did 
for  any  man,  and  showed  how  slavery  debased  and 
dragged  down  black  and  white  together;  and  he 
asked  if  it  were  not  natural  that  he  should  hate 
slavery  and  continue  to  agitate  the  question  of  its 
final  extinction.  "Yes,"  said  he,  "we  will  speak  for 
freedom  and  against  slavery  as  long  as  the  Con- 
stitution of  our  country  guarantees  free  speech,  until 
everywhere  on  this  broad  land  the  sun  shall  shine 
and  the  rain  shall  fall  and  the  wind  shall  blow  upon 
no  man  that  goes  forth  to  unrequited  toil." 

The  virulence  of  the  campaign  was  excessive.  In 
default  of  arguments  with  which  to  overthrow 
the  Republicans,  the  proslavery  party  resorted  to  the 
most  offensive  epithets  and  phrases  to  hurl  at  the 
opposition.  Fremont  had  once  headed  an  expedi- 
tion to  California  across  the  great  American  plains, 
and  he  and  his  party  suffered  incredible  hardships. 
He  had  opened  the  first  trial  across  the  continent, 
through  the  then  trackless  wilderness.  His  admir- 
ing and  his  enthusiastic  followers  now  called  him 
the  "Pathfinder."  To  them  he  was  a  gallant  hero. 
The  opposition  party  called  him  "a  mule -eating 
Black  Republican,"  and  his  party  was  known  as 
the  "Woolly-Horse"  party,  on  account  of  some 
tales  of  a  woolly  horse  having  been  found  by  the 
explorers.  The  election  resulted  as  Lincoln  had  pri- 
vately predicted  that  it  would,  in  the  election  of  James 
Buchanan.  The  last  fight  for  freedom  had  begun, 


The  Coming  Man  159 

and  the  returns  showed  that  every  slave  State  but 
one  had  voted  for  the  Democratic  candidate.  The 
total  number  of  electoral  votes  for  Buchanan  was 
1 74,  the  following  slave  States  having  voted  for  him : 
Alabama,  Arkansas,  Delaware,  Florida,  Georgia, 
Kentucky,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina,  Tennessee,  Texas,  Virginia.  The 
free  States  for  Buchanan  were:  California,  Illinois, 
Indiana,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania.  The  free  States 
voting  for  Fremont  were:  Connecticut,  Iowa,  Maine, 
Massachusetts,  Michigan,  New  Hampshire,  New 
York,  Ohio,  Rhode  Island,  Vermont,  Wisconsin;  a 
total  of  114  votes  against  Buchanan's  174.  Mary- 
land, a  slave  State,  cast  its  electoral  vote  of  eight  for 
Fillmore.  Thus  Buchanan  had  the  votes  .of  four- 
teen slave  States  and  five  free  States ;  Fremont,  the 
votes  of  eleven  free  States;  and  Fillmore,  that  of 
one  slave  State.  Reckoning  up  the  number  of  voters 
in  all  the  States,  we  find  that  Buchanan  had,  all 
told,  1,838,169  votes,  Fremont  had  1,341,264,  and 
Fillmore  had  874,534.  In  Illinois,  Bissell,  the  Re- 
publican candidate  for  governor,  was  elected,  al- 
though the  electoral  vote  of  the  State  was  given  to 
Buchanan. 

Meanwhile,  the  fight  between  freedom  and  slavery 
still  went  on  in  Kansas.  The  proslavery  men,  by 
denying  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  free-State  men, 
managed  to  elect  a  Legislature,  which  assembled  at 
Lecompton,  and  which  was  known  as  "the  bogus 
Legislature."  A  State  constitution  was  also  framed, 
with  the  legalization  of  slavery  in  it,  as  a  matter  of 
course.  The  free-State  men  refused  to  recognize  the 


160  Abraham  Lincoln 

legality  of  any  of  these  doings,  or  to  participate  in 
the  mock  elections.  They  called  a  mass-meeting  of 
the  actual  settlers,  elected  delegates  to  a  constitu- 
tional convention,  which  assembled  at  Topeka  and 
framed  a  constitution  excluding  slavery  from  the 
Territory.  Thenceforth  politicians  were  known  as 
"Lecompton"  or  "Anti-Lecompton,"  as  they  fa- 
vored or  opposed  the  proposition  to  admit  slavery 
into  Kansas.  The  Topeka  Constitution  was  sub- 
mitted to  the  people  and  almost  unanimously 
adopted.  The  people  next  proceeded  to  elect  officers 
under  the  free-State  constitution.  The  Topeka  Con- 
stitution was  the  work  of  the  real  people  of  Kansas, 
marshalled  in  numbers.  The  Lecompton  Constitu- 
tion was  voted  for  by  a  mere  handful  of  the  persons 
nominally  resident  in  the  Territory.  Both  of  these 
instruments  were  sent  to  Washington  for  the  ap- 
proval of  Congress.  Robert  J.  Walker,  who  had 
been  appointed  governor  of  the  Territory  by  Presi- 
dent Buchanan,  made  haste  to  go  to  Washington  to 
protest  against  the  acceptance  of  the  Lecompton 
Constitution,  as  he  knew  it  to  be  false  and  fraudulent 
as  an  exposition  of  the  sentiments  and  wishes  of  the 
people  of  the  Territory.  Before  he  reached  the 
national  capital,  the  President  had  recommended 
Congress  to  accept  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  The 
free-State  officers,  acting  under  the  Topeka  Consti- 
tution, were  declared  guilty  of  treason  and  were 
arrested  and  lodged  in  jail.  The  Legislature  was 
dispersed  by  the  regular  army  of  the  United  States, 
acting  under  the  orders  of  the  President.  Kansas 
was  to  be  dragooned  into  accepting  slavery  as  a  State. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

LINCOLN    AND   DOUGLAS. 

The  Famous  Contest  for  the  Senatorship — A  Battle  of  Giants — Doug- 
las and  Lincoln  Compared — Two  Self-made  Men — Lincoln's  Auto- 
biography— A  Series  of  Famous  Debates — The  Country  Intent  on 
the  Struggle — A  Great  Lesson  in  American  Politics. 

ONCE  more  were  Lincoln  and  Douglas  to  be 
pitted  against  each  other.  In  1858,  the  sena- 
torial term  of  Douglas  was  drawing  to  a  close.  He 
desired  to  be  re-elected  and  to  have  the  indorsement 
of  the  people  of  Illinois.  Seeing  how  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  had  been  lawlessly  framed,  and  realiz- 
ing that  slavery  thus  forced  upon  Kansas  had  already 
made  hosts  of  converts  to  the  Republican  party,  he 
had  begun  to  differ,  personally,  with  the  President. 
He  soon,  by  his  votes  in  the  Senate,  showed  that  he 
was  opposed  to  the  Lecompton  Constitution.  It  was 
inconsistent  for  him  to  labor  against  that  which  his 
own  Kansas-Nebraska  Bill  had  made  possible.  But 
this  he  did,  and  not  a  few  Republicans  in  the  East- 
ern States  thought  that  he  would  hereafter  be  with 
them.  They  advised  that  the  Illinois  Republicans 
should  vote  for  him.  He  was  now  an  Anti-Lecomp- 
ton  Democrat,  as  the  phrase  went;  he  was  sure,  so 
they  thought,  for  freedom  as  against  slavery.  The 
Republicans  of  Illinois  knew  Douglas  better.  They 

refused  to  trust  him,  and  when  their  convention 
ii. 

161 


1 62  Abraham  Lincoln 

met,  June  16,  1858,  they  declared  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  their  first  and  only  choice  for  the  United 
States  Senate  to  fill  the  vacancy  about  to  be  created 
by  the  expiration  of  Mr.  Douglas's  term  of  office. 
The  Anti-Lecompton  Democrats  of  the  State,  two 
months  before,  had  similarly  nominated  Douglas  to 
succeed  himself. 

Lincoln  realized  that  this  was  to  be  a  mighty 
struggle.  None  better  than  he  understood  and  ap- 
preciated the  great  abilities  and  craftiness  of  Doug- 
las. None  better  than  he  knew  how  tender  the 
people  of  Illinois  yet  were  on  the  subject  of  human 
slavery,  half  afraid  of  the  stale  epithet  of  "Aboli- 
tionist." He  framed  his  speech  to  the  convention 
that  had  nominated  him,  putting  into  it  his  final 
platform,  the  platform  from  which  he  was  to  speak 
to  the  people  during  the  coming  canvass.  The  men 
who  were  to  choose  a  senator — himself  or  Douglas 
— were  not  yet  chosen,  except  a  few  in  the  upper 
house,  who  held  over  from  the  previous  year.  It 
was  to  the  people  who  elected  senators  and  repre- 
sentatives in  the  Legislature  that  he  and  Douglas 
were  to  appeal.  Lincoln  read  the  manuscript  of  his 
speech  to  his  partner,  Mr.  W.  H.  Herndon.  That 
gentleman  was  somewhat  dismayed  by  the  very  first 
paragraph.  It  was  almost  an  indorsement  of  the  old 
antislavery  doctrine  of  disunion;  for  in  it  was  the 
since-famous  declaration:  "A  house  divided  against 
itself  cannot  stand.  I  believe  this  government  can- 
not endure  permanently  half  slave  and  half  free." 
Mr.  Herndon  said  this  was  all  true;  but  he  was 
doubtful  if  it  was  discreet  to  say  so  at  that  time. 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  163 

Alluding  to  the  phrase  "a  house  divided,"  etc.,  Lin- 
coln said:  "The  proposition  has  been  true  for  six 
thousand  years.  I  will  deliver  thislspeech  as  it  is 
written."  And  he  did. 

In  the  course  of  that  address  he  said: 

"  I  do  not  expect  the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I  do  not 
expect  the  house  to  fall.  But  I  do  expect  it  will  cease  to 
be  divided.  It  will  become  all  one  thing,  or  all  the  other. 
Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further 
spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest 
in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction, 
or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it  shall  become 
lawful  in  all  States,  old  as  well  as  new,  North  as  well  as 
South." 

When  Douglas  opened  the  campaign,  as  he  did  in 
Chicago  early  in  the  following  month,  he  promptly 
took  up  this  utterance  of  Lincoln's  as  admitting,  and 
even  advocating,  a  war  of  sections,  North  against 
the  South.  We  shall  see  later  on  how  Lincoln  an- 
swered this  misrepresentation. 

When  this  memorable  debate  began,  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  were  both  in  the  full  maturity  of  their  physi- 
cal and  intellectual  powers.  Douglas  was  forty-five 
years  old,  and  Lincoln  was  forty -nine.  Douglas  was 
a  native  of  Vermont.  He  had  been  apprenticed  to 
a  cabinet-maker,  and  had  migrated  at  the  age  of 
twenty  to  Illinois,  where  he  earned  his  first  money 
as  a  clerk  at  an  auction  sale.  Like  Lincoln,  then, 
he  was  a  self-made  man,  risen  to  eminence  by  the 
sheer  force  of  character  and  genius.  At  the  age  of 
twenty -two  he  was  elected  Attorney-General  of  the 


1 64  Abraham  Lincoln 

young  State.  Resigning  this  office,  he  was  chosen 
to  the  State  Legislature,  where  he  speedily  made 
his  mark  as  a  shrewd  politician,  a  ready  debater, 
and  a  thoroughly  "good  fellow."  Here  it  was  that 
he  first  met  Lincoln — Lincoln,  who  was  to  be  his 
life-long  adversary  in  the  field  of  American  politics. 
Subsequently  he  was  elected  Representative  in  Con- 
gress three  times  in  succession.  Before  the  time 
came  for  him  to  take  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, after  his  third  election,  Douglas  was 
chosen  Senator  of  the  United  States  from  Illinois. 
He  was  now  at  the  end  of  his  second  term  as  Sena- 
tor, and  was  ready  to  appeal  to  the  people  to  choose 
members  of  the  Legislature  who  should  return  him 
to  the  Senate.  Douglas  was  frank,  hearty,  and 
affable  in  his  manners.  Although  in  debate  he  was 
overbearing  and  imperious,  towards  his  friends  he 
was  familiar,  and  even  affectionate.  He  was  a  bold, 
dashing,  and  fearless  debater,  fluent,  never  hesitat- 
ing for  a  word  or  phrase,  aggressive,  and  sometimes 
arrogant,  full  of  all  manner  of  guile,  yet  impressing 
every  one  with  his  apparent  sincerity  and  transpar- 
ency of  character.  So  attractive  was  he  that  he 
bound  his  friends  to  him,  as  it  were,  with  hooks  of 
steel.  Small  of  stature,  with  long  and  grizzled  hair, 
at  the  time  this  chapter  of  history  opens  his  ad- 
mirers called  him  "The  Little  Giant  of  Illinois." 
This  was  the  man  who  was  to  meet  Lincoln  in  a 
popular  canvass,  in  which  the  whole  State  was  to 
be  traversed. 

Lincoln  was,  as  we  know,  of  almost  herculean 
build,     His  head  was  massive,  poised  on  a  very  long 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  165 

neck,  with  stiff  and  obstinate  hair  that  usually  stood 
up  in  irregular  waves.  His  face  was  dark  and 
seamed,  his  eyes  deep-set  beneath  overhanging  and 
shaggy  brows,  beardless,  and  with  a  far-away  look 
on  his  often-sad  features  at  times  that  struck  even 
the  most  casual  observer  as  profoundly  pathetic. 
His  manner,  when  he  was  alert,  was  bright,  and 
when  with  his  congenial  associates,  even  jovial.  In 
speaking  he  impressed  every  one  with  his  directness, 
simplicity,  good  sense,  clearness  of  statement,  wit 
and  humor,  and  purity  and  accuracy  of  language. 
At  this  time  he  was  asked  for  a  brief  biographical 
sketch  of  himself.  He  complied  with  the  following, 
which  is  inserted  here  at  a  point  that  must  be  reck- 
oned as  one  of  the  crises  in  the  history  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  son  of  the  Kentucky  backwoodsman : 

"  I  was  born  Feb.  12,  1809, in  Hardin  County,  Kentucky. 
My  parents  were  both  born  in  Virginia,  of  undistinguished 
families — second  families,  perhaps  I  should  say.  My 
mother,  who  died  in  my  tenth  year,  was  of  a  family  of  the 
name  of  Hanks,  some  of  whom  now  reside  in  Adams,  and 
others  in  Macon,  Counties,  Illinois.  My  paternal  grand- 
father, Abraham  Lincoln,  emigrated  from  Rockingham 
County,  Virginia,  to  Kentucky  about  1781  or  '2,  where,  a 
year  or  two  later,  he  was  killed  by  Indians,  not  in  battle 
but  by  stealth,  when  he  was  laboring  to  open  a  farm  in 
the  forest.  His  ancestors,  who  were  Quakers,  went  to 
Virginia  from  Berks  County,  Pennsylvania.  An  effort  to 
identify  them  with  the  New  England  family  of  the  same 
name  ended  in  nothing  more  definite  than  a  similarity  of 
Christian  names  in  both  families,  such  as  Enoch,  Levi, 
Mordecai,  Solomon,  Abraham,  and  the  like. 


1 66  Abraham  Lincoln 

"  My  father,  at  the  death  of  his  father,  was  but  six  years 
of  age,  and  he  grew  up  literally  without  education.  He 
removed  from  Kentucky,  to  what  is  now  Spencer  County, 
Indiana,  in  my  eighth  year.  We  reached  our  new  home 
about  the  time  the  State  came  into  the  Union.  It  was  a 
wild  region,  with  many  bears  and  other  wild  animals  still 
in  the  woods.  There  I  grew  up.  There  were  some  schools 
so-called,  but  no  qualification  was  ever  required  of  a 
teacher  beyond  'readin,'  writin',  and  cipherin'  '  to  the 
Rule  of  Three.  If  a  straggler  supposed  to  understand 
Latin  happened  to  sojourn  in  the  neighborhood,  he  was 
looked  upon  as  a  wizard.  There  was  absolutely  nothing 
to  excite  ambition  for  education.  Of  course,  when  I 
came  of  age  I  did  not  know  much.  Still,  somehow,  I 
could  read,  write,  and  cipher  to  the  Rule  of  Three ;  but 
that  was  all.  I  have  not  been  to  school  since.  The  little 
advance  I  now  have  upon  this  store  of  education  I  have 
picked  up  from  time  to  time  under  the  pressure  of 
necessity. 

"  I  was  raised  to  farm  work,  which  I  continued  till  I  was 
twenty-two.  At  twenty-one  I  came  to  Illinois,  and 
passed  the  first  year  in  Macon  County.  Then  I  got  to 
New  Salem,  at  that  time  in  Sangamon,  now  in  Menard 
County,  where  I  remained  a  year  as  sort  of  clerk  in  a  store. 
Then  came  the  Black  Hawk  war,  and  I  was  elected  a 
Captain  of  Volunteers,  a  success  which  gave  me  more 
pleasure  than  any  I  have  had  since.  I  went  [through] 
the  campaign,  was  elated,  ran  for  the  Legislature  the  same 
year  (183 2),  and  was  beaten — the  only  time  I  have  ever 
been  beaten  by  the  people.  The  next  and  three  succeed- 
ing biennial  elections  I  was  elected  to  the  Legislature.  I 
was  not  a  candidate  afterwards.  During  this  legislative 
period  I  had  studied  law  and  removed  to  Springfield  to 
practise  it.  In  1846  I  was  once  elected  to  the  Lower 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  167 

House  of  Congress.  Was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election. 
From  1849  to  1854,  both  inclusive,  practised  law  more 
assiduously  than  ever  before.  Always  a  Whig  in  politics, 
and  generally  on  the  Whig  electoral  tickets,  making  active 
canvasses.  I  was  losing  interest  in  politics,  when  the 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  aroused  me  again. 
What  I  have  done  since  then  is  pretty  well  known. 

"  If  any  personal  description  of  me  is  thought  desirable, 
it  may  be  said  I  am  in  height  six  feet  four  inches,  nearly ; 
lean  in  flesh,  weighing,  on  an  average,  one  hundred  and 
eighty  pounds ;  dark  complexion,  with  coarse  black  hair 
and  gray  eyes.  No  other  marks  or  brands  recollected. 

"  Yours,  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

Not  long  before  the  opening  of  the  debate  between 
Lincoln  and  Douglas,  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  Chief  Justice  Taney  delivering  the 
opinion,  had  decided  virtually  that,  by  virtue  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  republic,  slavery  existed  in 
all  the  Territories,  and  that  Congress  had  no  right  to 
prohibit  it.  This  was  known  as  the  Dred  Scott  de- 
cision. A  negro  of  that  name  sued  for  his  freedom 
and  that  of  his  wife  and  children,  claiming  that  by  his 
having  been  carried  by  his  owner  into  a  Territory 
north  of  the  northern  boundary  of  Missouri,  wherein 
slavery  was  excluded  by  the  Missouri  Compromise, 
he  had  become  freed  by  the  operation  of  the  law. 
This  decision  made  slavery  national,  freedom  local. 

Obviously,  then,  the  two  important  topics  before 
the  country  were  the  effect  that  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  would  have  upon  slavery  and  freedom,  and 
the  struggle  in  Kansas.  Although  Douglas  was  now 


1 68  Abraham  Lincoln 

an  Anti-Lecompton  Democrat,  he  was  to  be  taken 
to  task  before  the  country  for  the  result  in  Kansas 
of  his  advocacy  of  what  he  called  popular  sover- 
eignty. This  had  made  the  Lecompton  infamy  pos- 
sible. He  also  approved  the  Dred  Scott  decision; 
but  the  dogma  laid  down  in  that  decision  effectually 
killed  his  own  doctrine  of  popular  sovereignty.  It 
put  slavery  into  all  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States  before  the  people  of  those  Territories  could 
have  an  opportunity  of  saying  whether  it  should  be 
voted  up  or  down. 

Replying  to  Douglas's  speech  in  which  that  orator 
accused  Lincoln  of  advocating  disunion  of  the  States, 
Lincoln  said  that  he  believed  that  the  framers  of 
the  Constitution  expected  that,  in  course  of  time, 
slavery  would  become  extinct;  they  had  decreed 
that  slavery  should  not  go  into  territory  where  it 
had  not  already  gone,  and  that  when  he  had  said 
that  the  opponents  of  slavery  would  place  that 
institution  where  the  public  mind  would  rest  in  the 
expectation  of  its  ultimate  extinction,  he  only  meant 
to  say  that  they  would  place  it  where  the  fathers 
of  the  Republic  originally  placed  it.  In  Douglas's 
speech,  as  was  common  in  those  days,  when  men 
were  cornered  for  want  of  logical  answers  to  Repub- 
lican arguments,  the  speaker  had  intimated  that 
Lincoln  was  in  favor  of  a  complete  equality  of  the 
black  and  the  white  races.  In  his  reply,  Lincoln 
said:  "I  protest,  now  and  forever,  against  that 
counterfeit  logic  which  presumes  that  because  I  do 
not  want  a  negro  woman  for  a  slave,  I  do  necessarily 
want  her  for  a  wife.  My  understanding  is  that  I 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  169 

need  not  have  her  for  either;  but,  as  God  made  us 
separate,  we  can  leave  one  another  alone,  and  do 
one  another  much  good  thereby." 

This  was  the  opening  of  the  great  debate  in  Chi- 
cago in  the  summer  of  1858.  A  few  days  later 
Douglas  spoke  at  Bloomington,  and  then  in  Spring- 
field, on  each  occasion  devoting  himself  to  Lincoln's 
previous  speeches.  Lincoln  spoke  in  Springfield 
also ;  and,  addressing  himself  to  the  expectation  that 
Douglas  would,  some  day,  be  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  the  anxious  politicians  of 
his  party  were  waiting  for  that  event  with  great 
hopefulness,  Lincoln  said : 

"They  have  seen,  in  his  round,  jolly,  fruitful  face,  post- 
offices,  land-offices,  marshalships,  and  cabinet  appoint- 
ments, charg6ships  and  foreign  missions,  bursting  and 
sprouting  out,  in  wonderful  luxuriance,  ready  to  be  laid 
hold  of  by  their  greedy  hands.  And  as  they  have  been 
gazing  upon  this  attractive  picture  so  long,  they  cannot, 
in  the  little  distraction  that  has  taken  place  in  the  party, 
bring  themselves  to  give  up  the  charming  hope ;  but  with 
greedier  anxiety  they  rush  about  him,  sustain  him,  and 
give  him  marches,  triumphal  entries,  and  receptions, 
beyond  what,  even  in  the  days  of  his  highest  prosperity, 
they  could  have  brought  about  in  his  favor.  On  the 
contrary,  nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be  President. 
In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face  nobody  has  ever  seen  that  any 
cabbages  were  sprouting  out." 

All  this,  however,  was  a  contest  at  which  both 
disputants  were,  so  to  speak,  at  arm's  length  from 
each  other.  Lincoln  wanted  a  closer  wrestle  with 


1 70  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  ' '  Little  Giant. ' '  Accordingly,  he  addressed  a  note 
to  Douglas  asking  him  if  he  would  agree  to  a  joint 
canvass  of  the  State,  each  speaking  from  the  same 
platform  and  each  having  his  own  quota  of  time 
allotted  him.  Douglas  objected  to  this  arrange- 
ment, several  reasons,  satisfactory  to  himself,  being 
given.  But,  after  some  negotiation,  arrangements 
were  made  by  which  a  joint  debate  was  fixed  for 
seven  different  points,  the  first  being  at  Ottawa, 
August  21,  1858,  and  the  last  at  Alton,  October 
1 5th.  Meanwhile  both  speakers  were  industriously 
canvassing  the  State,  each  in  his  own  way  and  in- 
dependently of  the  other. 

The  joint  debate  between  these  two  men  attracted 
the  attention  of  the  entire  country.  It  was  a  battle 
of  the  giants.  Nothing  like  it  has  ever  before  or 
since  been  seen  in  the  Republic.  The  gravest  issues 
— those  of  freedom  and  slavery — were  involved  in 
the  discussion.  All  men  saw  that  this  debate  was 
likely  to  settle  the  greatest  question  that  had  come 
before  the  people  since  the  adoption  of  the  Consti- 
tution; not  that  it  would  settle  it  as  a  judicial 
decree  would  settle  it,  but  it  was  seen  that  out  of 
this  contest  must  issue  the  ultimate  truth,  the  truth 
on  which  parties  in  future  must  stand  or  fall.  Lin- 
coln travelled  in  an  unostentatious  and  inexpensive 
manner.  Douglas  moved  from  point  to  point  on  a 
special  railway  train,  accompanied  by  a  brass  band 
and  cannon,  with  the  blare  and  volleying  of  which 
his  entrance  to  town  was  heralded.  Douglas  did 
not  always  observe  the  proprieties  of  debate^  and 
too  often  the  unmannerly  followers  of  the  "Little 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  171 

Giant"  insolently  interrupted  the  opponent  of  their 
chieftain.  Lincoln  during  this  memorable  canvass 
was  shamefully  belied  and  misrepresented;  but  no 
word  of  remonstrance  or  complaint  ever  escaped  his 
lips.  Douglas  resorted  to  the  use  of  unworthy  epi- 
thets and  insinuations.  He  continually  harped  on 
the  assertion  that  the  Republicans  were  in  favor 
of  negro  social  equality,  and  he  invariably  referred 
to  them  as  "Black  Republicans,"  and  employed 
other  terms  to  express  his  contempt.  Now  that  we 
can  look  back  upon  this  remarkable  episode  in  the 
history  of  American  politics,  it  must  be  admitted 
that  Lincoln's  bearing,  deportment,  and  general 
behavior  were  all  superior  to  Douglas's.  The  dig- 
nity, immovable  good-humor,  and  gentleness  with 
which  Lincoln  bore  himself  commend  him  to  the 
affection  and  respect  of  the  student  of  history. 

Mr.  Douglas  in  these  debates  contended  that  each 
State  had  a  right  to  decide  for  itself  just  what  rights, 
if  any,  it  should  give  to  the  negro;  that  the  negro 
had  no  natural  equality;  that  the  people  of  each 
Territory  had  a  right  to  say  whether  they  would 
have  slavery  or  not;  and  that  the  Union  and  the 
government  could  exist  forever,  so  far  as  he  could 
see,  half  slave  and  half  free.  Especially  did  he  in- 
sist that  those  who  differed  with  him  were  in  favor 
of  negro  social  equality — the  admission  of  negroes 
to  the  homes  and  bosoms  of  those  who  were  in  favor 
of  limiting  slavery  to  the  States  in  which  it  then 
existed,  or  of  excluding  it  from  the  Territories.  Lin- 
coln, on  the  other  hand,  planted  himself  squarely 
on  the  Declaration  of  Independence:  that  all  men 


172  Abraham  Lincoln 

were  born  free,  and  that  they  all  had  certain  rights 
from  which  they  could  not  be  justly  deprived,  such 
as  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  The 
negro,  he  insisted,  was  a  man.  Slavery  was  wrong, 
and  it  should  at  least  be  confined  in  the  States  in 
which  it  already  existed;  it  should  not  be  the  nat- 
ural condition  of  things  in  the  Territories,  as  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  made  it.  On  this  point,  he 
sharply  arraigned  Douglas  for  his  inconsistency. 
Douglas  clamored  for  popular  sovereignty,  the  right 
of  the  voters  in  a  Territory  to  say  whether  slavery 
should  exist  with  them  or  not,  and  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  declared  that  slavery  was  already  in  the 
Territories.  This,  said  Lincoln,  is  declaring  that  the 
people  have  a  right  to  drive  away  that  which  has  a 
right  to  go  there. 

It  will  be  seen,  therefore,  that  Douglas,  by  ac- 
cepting the  Dred  Scott  decision,  admitted  that  slav- 
ery was  the  natural  condition  of  things  in  a  Territory, 
while  at  the  same  time  he  contended  for  the  right, 
under  the  name  of  popular  sovereignty,  of  a  people 
of  a  Territory  to  say  whether  they  would  have  that 
which  they  already  had,  whether  they  liked  it  or 
not.  This  glaring  inconsistency  we  may  be  sure 
was  made  conspicuous  by  Lincoln's  merciless  logic. 
It  was  Lincoln's  manifest  purpose  to  compel  Doug- 
las to  desert  his  seeming  indifference  to  slavery,  and 
to  say  whether  he  thought  it  right  or  wrong  in  itself. 
In  his  view,  the  Dred  Scott  decision  and  the  Douglas 
idea  of  popular  sovereignty  could  not  be  held  to- 
gether in  one  man's  belief.  So  he  framed  questions 
designed  to  bring  the  matter  before  Douglas  in  such 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  173 

a  shape  as  to  oblige  him  to  admit  or  deny  the  ab- 
stract rights  of  slavery.  Lincoln's  friends  remon- 
strated with  him.  "If  you  put  that  question  to 
him,"  they  said,  "he  will  perceive  that  the  answer 
giving  practical  force  and  effect  to  the  Dred  Scott 
decision  in  the  Territories  inevitably  loses  him  the 
battle;  and  he  will  therefore  reply  by  offering  the 
decision  as  an  abstract  principle,  but  denying  its 
practical  application.  He  will  say  that  the  decision 
is  just  and  right,  but  it  is  not  to  be  put  into  force 
and  effect  in  the  Territories."  "If  he  takes  that 
shoot,"  said  Lincoln,  "he  can  never  be  President." 
Lincoln's  anxious  friends  replied:  "That  is  not  your 
lookout;  you  are  after  the  senatorship."  "No, 
gentlemen,"  said  he,  "I  am  killing  larger  game. 
The  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a  hundred  of  this." 

Did  Lincoln,  even  then,  see  so  far  ahead  as  to 
perceive  that  he  might  be  the  Republican  candidate 
for  the  Presidency  in  1860?  Did  he  see  that  it  was 
necessary  that  Douglas  should  be  "killed  off,"  as  a 
possible  Democratic  candidate  against  him?  We 
cannot  tell.  Lincoln  was  a  wise  man,  and  some  of 
his  sayings  were  like  prophecies.  We  know  that 
Lincoln  did  put  those  questions  to  Douglas;  that 
Douglas  answered  them  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
ruin  his  chances  with  the  South,  which  was  watch- 
ing this  contest  with  vigilance,  and  that  that  answer 
made  his  support  by  the  South  in  1860  an  utter 
impossibility. 

On  the  points  here  indicated,  the  seven  joint  de- 
bates usually  turned.  Everybody  felt  that  Lincoln 
was,  to  use  the  common  expression  of  the  country, 


174  Abraham  Lincoln 

"getting  the  best"  of  Douglas.  At  some  times,  in- 
deed, Douglas,  by  his  manner,  showed  that  he 
thought  so  too.  For  example,  at  Charleston,  111., 
when  they  were  in  their  fourth  meeting,  Lincoln's 
reply  to  Douglas  was  powerful  and  intense  in  its 
vigor.  Douglas's  evasions  and  shifty  tricks  were 
exposed  with  a  clearness  of  logic  that  was  wonder- 
ful, and  so  convincing  that  everybody  saw  it;  even 
Douglas's  friends  seemed  to  be  seized  with  a  panic, 
and  the  great  assembly  was  stirred  with  a  strange 
tremor.  Douglas  realized  his  overthrow,  his  in- 
ability to  reply,  although  he  had  the  closing  of  that 
day's  debate.  He  lost  his  temper,  left  his  seat,  and, 
watch  in  hand,  paced  up  and  down  the  rear  of  the 
platform,  behind  the  speaker,  his  impatience  mani- 
fest in  his  manner.  One  who  saw  the  remarkable 
scene  says:  "He  was  greatly  agitated,  his  long 
grizzled  hair  waving  in  the  wind,  like  the  shaggy 
locks  of  an  enraged  lion."  This  took  place  when 
Lincoln  was  striking  his  heaviest  blows,  his  pitiless 
reasoning  falling  like  a  maul,  as  some  one  said,  upon 
the  unresponsive  log  of  Douglas's  argument.  The 
instant  that  the  hands  of  Douglas's  watch  marked 
the  moment  for  Lincoln  to  stop,  he  turned  the  time- 
piece towards  Lincoln  and  eagerly  cried:  "Sit  down, 
Lincoln,  sit  down;  your  time  is  up." 

Turning  his  face,  lighted  with  the  fire  of  his  own 
inspiration,  to  the  speaker  behind  him,  Lincoln 
calmly  said:  "I  will.  I  will  quit.  I  believe  my 
time  is  up."  "Yes,"  said  one  on  the  platform, 
"Douglas  has  had  enough.  It  is  time  you  let  him 
up." 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  175 

These  debates,  as  we  have  said,  attracted  great 
and  earnest  attention  all  over  the  country.  They 
were  made  the  occasion  of  vast  outpourings  of  the 
people  of  the  State  and  of  the  neighboring  region. 
The  two  men  were  always  promptly  on  the  field  to 
fulfil  their  engagements ;  and  they  invariably  found 
a  tremendous  concourse  of  people  waiting  to  hear 
them.  In  those  days,  railroads  were  not  so  numer- 
ous as  now,  although  the  great  trunk  lines  were  in 
existence.  People  rode  long  distances  in  farm- 
wagons,  and  the  neighborhood  of  a  town  in  which 
one  of  the  great  debates  was  to  be  held  indicated 
the  deep  interest  that  the  population  took  in  what 
was  going  on.  Companies  of  men  from  a  distance 
camped  for  the  night  by  creeks  and  under  the  trees, 
patiently  enduring  fatigue  and  privation  that  they 
might  hear  the  mighty  truths  discussed  that  so  in- 
timately concerned  the  national  well-being.  Never 
before  in  the  history  of  the  Republic  had  so  good  an 
opportunity  come  for  the  teaching  of  the  common 
people  the  sublime  principles  that  underlie  our  free 
government.  Never  before  were  the  elementary 
ideas  of  popular  government  so  lucidly,  so  eloquently, 
and  so  attractively  set  before  the  men  and  women 
of  a  great,  thoughtful,  and  liberty-loving  commu- 
nity. The  echo  of  the  controversy  penetrated  every 
nook  and  corner  of  the  Republic,  until  weary  slaves 
on  distant  plantations  heard  the  whisper  of  their 
coming  freedom;  for  this  was  but  a  preparation  of 
the  larger  struggle  that  was  to  come. 

When  the  joint  discussion  was  agreed  upon,  many 
of  Lincoln's  friends,  even  among  those  who  knew 


1 76  Abraham  Lincoln 

him  well,  were  timorous  of  the  future,  doubtful  of 
the  result.  They  loved  and  trusted  Lincoln,  but 
they  were  afraid  of  Douglas — Douglas,  the  powerful 
and  influential  Senator,  who  had  never  yet  been 
defeated,  and  who  bore  down  all  opposition.  Just 
before  the  first  meeting  of  the  two  disputants,  a 
friend  of  Lincoln's  met  him  at  a  great  political  gather- 
ing in  Springfield,  and  expressed  to  him,  as  delicately 
as  possible,  the  fears  of  those  who  loved  him  so  well, 
for  Lincoln  was  ever  a  dearly  beloved  man  to  those 
who  knew  him.  Greeting  this  man,  and  hearing 
from  him  that  his  old  acquaintances  were  looking 
forward  with  some  anxiety  to  the  approaching  dis- 
cussion, a  shade  of  sadness  flitted  over  Lincoln's 
careworn  face;  then  a  light  flashed  from  his  eyes, 
and  his  lips  quivered.  In  the  half-jocular,  half- 
serious  manner  that  was  so  peculiar  to  him,  he  said, 
with  lips  compressed : 

"  My  friend,  sit  down  here  a  minute  and  I  will  tell  you  a 
story.  You  and  I  have  travelled  the  circuit  together, 
attending  court,  and  have  often  seen  two  men  about  to 
fight.  One  of  them,  the  big  or  the  little  giant,  as  the  case 
may  be,  is  noisy  and  boastful;  he  jumps  high  in  the  air 
and  strikes  his  feet  together,  smites  his  fists  together, 
brags  about  what  he  is  going  to  do,  and  tries  hard  to 
sheer  the  other  man.  The  other  says  not  a  word.  His 
arms  are  at  his  side,  his  fists  are  clenched,  his  teeth  set, 
his  head  settled  firmly  on  his  shoulders;  he  saves  his 
breath  and  strength  for  the  struggle.  This  man  will 
whip,  just  as  sure  as  the  fight  comes  off.  Good-bye,  and 
remember  what  I  say." 

From  that  time  the  man  who  sat  with  Lincoln  in 


Lincoln  and  Douglas  177 

the  hotel  doorway  and  heard  the  prophecy  from  his 
unboastful  friend  never  doubted  that  the  victory 
would  be  with  the  speaker. 

Nevertheless,  Douglas  was  elected  United  States 
Senator.  In  the  State  Legislature  were  several 
senators  holding  over  from  a  previous  year.  They 
were  Democrats,  although  the  districts  from  which 
they  had  been  elected  were  now  Republican.  The 
dividing  of  the  State  into  districts  was  also  unfair 
to  the  party  that  supported  Lincoln,  so  that  Demo- 
cratic votes  counted  for  more  in  the  Legislature  than 
the  same  number  of  Republican  votes.  When  the 
returns  were  all  in,  it  was  found  that  126,048  had 
voted  for  Lincoln  and  121,940  for  Douglas.  So, 
although  Douglas  was  subsequently  chosen  Senator 
by  the  Legislature,  Lincoln  won  the  moral  victory. 
All  over  the  Republic  it  was  felt  that  he  had  come 
off  conqueror  in  the  field  of  debate,  had  worsted  the 
hitherto  unconquerable  Douglas,  the  "Little  Giant," 
and  had  made  for  himself  a  name  that  should  endure 
so  long  as  men  love  liberty  and  regard  justice.  In 
one  of  the  later  speeches  of  this  wonderful  debate 
Lincoln  said : 

"  I  say  to  you,  that  in  this  mighty  issue  it  is  nothing  to 
the  mass  of  the  people  of  the  nation  whether  Judge 
Douglas  or  myself  are  or  shall  ever  be  heard  of  after  this 
night.  It  may  be  a  trifle  to  us,  but,  in  connection  with 
this  mighty  issue  upon  which,  perhaps,  hang  the  destinies 
of  the  nation,  the  United  States  senatorship  is  absolutely 
nothing." 

During  this  debate,  many  points  made  by  Lin- 
coln were  suggestive  of  his  early  training :  his  figures 


i;8  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  speech  were  almost  always  drawn  from  his  per- 
sonal experience  in  the  backwoods,  on  the  farm,  or 
from  his  more  recent  studies  in  American  history. 
To  one  who  has  followed  the  history  of  the  man,  an 
examination  of  these  remarkable  traces  of  Lincoln's 
mental  habits  and  earlier  pursuits  is  exceedingly 
interesting.  For  example,  after  he  had  been  ad- 
mitted to  the  bar,  noticing  the  frequent  use  of  the 
word  "demonstrate,"  and  feeling  that  a  mathemati- 
cal proposition,  as  demonstrated,  was  a  good  illus- 
tration of  the  power  of  truth,  he  manfully  went  at 
the  study  of  Euclid,  and,  to  use  his  own  expression, 
"collared  it"  before  he  left  it.  In  the  debates  with 
Douglas  he  was  irritated  with  Douglas's  constant 
iteration  of  the  charge  that  he,  Lincoln,  had  in- 
dorsed certain  statements  of  Senator  Trumbull's, 
that  were,  as  Douglas  said,  untrue.  Finally,  Lincoln 
said: 

"Why,  sir,  there  is  not  a  single  statement  in  Trumbull's 
speech  that  depends  on  Trumbull's  veracity.  Why  does 
not  Judge  Douglas  answer  the  facts?  ...  If  you 
have  studied  geometry,  you  remember  that  by  a  course  of 
reasoning  Euclid  proves  that  all  the  angles  in  a  triangle 
are  equal  to  two  right  angles.  Euclid  has  shown  how  to 
work  it  out.  Now,  if  you  undertook  to  disprove  that  pro- 
position, to  prove  that  it  was  erroneous,  would  you  do  it 
by  calling  Euclid  a  liar?  That  is  the  way  Judge  Douglas 
answers  Trumbull." 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

AFTER    A   GREAT    STRUGGLE. 

Condition  of  the  Two  Contestants — The  Crocodile  and  the  Negro- 
Douglas  in  the  South — Lincoln  Nominated  by  Illinois  Republi- 
cans— The  Rail-Splitting  Candidate — Some  Pithy  Sayings — Lin- 
coln Speaks  in  New  York — The  Man  from  Illinois. 

THE  election  was  over,  and  the  two  champions 
were  left  in  a  condition  that  varied  with  each. 
It  had  been  a  long  and  exhaustive  struggle,  but  it 
was  observed  of  Lincoln  that,  though  weary,  he 
appeared  more  like  an  athlete  just  entering  a  struggle, 
not  just  coming  out  of  one.  His  sinewy  form  was 
as  erect  and  elastic  as  ever,  his  eye  was  bright,  and 
his  face,  though  naturally  sallow,  was  lighted  with 
animation.  Here  his  early  training  and  abstemious 
habits  stood  him  in  good  stead.  He  had  "never 
applied  hot  and  rebellious  liquors  to  his  blood,"  and 
in  this  time  of  sore  trial  he  came  out  unscathed. 
The  hundred  days  of  a  tense  and  exciting  canvass 
left  no  mark  on  him.  Douglas,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  badly  shattered;  his  voice  was  almost  gone,  and 
he  scarcely  spoke  above  a  whisper.  He  showed 
great  fatigue,  and  he  sought  rest  and  repose  as  soon 
as  he  could  get  away  from  his  friends.  But  Douglas, 
too,  had  an  iron  constitution,  and  he  soon  rallied  his 
physical  forces,  and  was  himself  again  after  a  few 
days  of  rest.  Later  on,  he  went  through  several  of 

I7Q 


i8o  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  Southern  States,  descending  towards  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico  by  the  Mississippi  River.  At  various  points 
down  the  stream  he  was  received  with  acclaim,  and 
his  speeches  manifested  his  desire  to  recover  with 
the  slave-owning  people  of  the  South  whatever  he 
might  have  lost  in  the  debate  on  the  free  soil  of 
Illinois.  He  said  at  Memphis,  Tenn.,  for  example, 
that  wherever  the  climate  and  soil  of  a  State  or 
Territory  made  it  for  the  interest  of  the  people  to 
encourage  slave  labor,  there  they  would  have  a 
slave  code.  At  that  time,  the  Buchanan  adminis- 
tration cherished,  among  other  darling  plans  for  the 
acquisition  of  more  slave  territory,  one  for  the  pur- 
chase of  Cuba.  Douglas  said  that  this  was  neces- 
sary. In  New  Orleans,  he  said  that  wherever  a  race 
showed  itself  incapable  of  self-government,  the 
stronger  race  must  govern  it;  and  that  the  negro 
was  of  such  a  race.  Indeed,  his  speeches  were  all 
designed  to  strengthen  himself  with  men  who  be- 
lieved that  slavery  was  right,  just,  and  needful  to 
the  white  race. 

It  was  during  this  brief  tour  that  Douglas  made 
use  of  the  famous  "crocodile"  figure  of  speech, 
afterwards  taken  up  by  Lincoln.  Douglas  said :  "As 
between  the  crocodile  and  the  negro,  I  take  the  side 
of  the  negro ;  but,  as  between  the  negro  and  the  white 
man,  I  would  go  for  the  white  man,  every  time." 
Lincoln,  at  home,  noted  that;  and  afterwards,  when 
he  had  occasion  to  refer  to  the  remark,  he  said : 

"  I  believe  that  this  is  a  sort  of  proposition  in  proportion, 
which  may  be  stated  thus :  '  As  the  negro  is  to  the  white 
man,  so  is  the  crocodile  to  the  negro;  and  as  the  negro 


After  a  Great  Struggle  181 

may  rightfully  treat  the  crocodile  as  a  beast  or  reptile, 
so  the  white  man  may  rightfully  treat  the  negro  as  a 
beast  or  reptile.'  Now,  my  brother  Kentuckians,  who 
believe  in  this,  you  ought  to  thank  Judge  Douglas  for 
having  put  that  in  a  much  more  taking  way  than  any  of 
yourselves  have  done." 

This,  however,  was  somewhat  later  in  the  year. 
Lincoln  now  belonged,  apparently,  to  politics.  He 
resumed  his  practice  of  law,  and  to  all  appearances 
had  given  up  thoughts  of  political  preferment;  but 
he  did  not  conceal  his  regret  at  the  failure  of  his 
party  to  carry  the  Legislature  and  secure  his  own 
election  to  the  United  States  Senate.  When  asked 
by  a  friend  how  he  felt  when  his  defeat  was  assured 
by  the  returns  of  the  election,  he  said,  in  his  usual 
good-natured  and  jocose  way,  that  he  felt  "like 
the  boy  who  stubbed  his  toe,  too  badly  to  laugh  and 
too  big  to  cry."  By  this  time,  we  must  remember, 
he  was  accustomed  to  defeat.  He  had  been  in  a 
minority  too  long  to  regard  the  victory  of  others 
over  him  as  an  unmixed  evil. 

Lincoln's  affability,  perfect  simplicity,  good-nat- 
ure, and  home-like  freedom  of  manner  had  by 
this  time  made  him,  as  it  were,  an  inmate  of  every 
household  in  the  West.  Everybody  among  those 
plain  people  recognized  him  as  "one  of  us,"  a  man 
to  be  loved  and  admired,  and  not  at  a  distance 
either.  The  Lincoln-Douglas  debate,  however,  gave 
him  a  wider  fame.  The  speeches  had  been  so  exten- 
sively read,  and  the  joint  canvass  was  in  itself  so 
unique  an  affair  to  Eastern  people,  that  they  all 
thought  they  knew  now  the  two  men  who  had 


1 82  Abraham  Lincoln 

figured  on  this  national  stage.  Invitations  came  pour- 
ing upon  Lincoln  from  all  over  the  Northern  States, 
seeking  to  secure  his  services  in  the  battle  being 
fought  in  each  State.  During  the  winter  of  1858-9, 
he  devoted  himself  to  his  own  private  affairs,  listen- 
ing, we  may  suppose,  to  the  beating  of  the  popular 
heart  as  indicated  in  the  newspapers  and  in  the  po- 
litical meetings  that  the  excited  condition  of  public 
affairs  made  it  necessary  to  hold  all  over  the  country. 
In  May,  1859,  he  was  called  upon  to  say,  as  a 
possible  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  what  were  his 
views  concerning  the  attempts  made  in  some  States 
to  curtail  the  political  privileges  of  naturalized  for- 
eigners. Dr.  Theodor  Canisius,  a  German  citizen  of 
Illinois,  wrote  him  a  letter  asking  him  what  he 
thought  of  such  an  attempt  as  this,  lately  made  in 
Massachusetts.  Lincoln,  while  declining  to  criticise 
Massachusetts,  said  he  should  be  sorry  to  see  any 
such  proposition  brought  up  in  Illinois,  and  he  would 
oppose  it  wherever  he  had  the  right  to  do  so. 

"As  I  understand  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,"  said 
he,  "it  is  designed  to  promote  the  elevation  of  men.  I 
am,  therefore,  hostile  to  anything  that  tends  to  their 
debasement.  It  is  well  known  that  I  deplore  the  de- 
pressed condition  of  the  blacks,  and  it  would,  therefore, 
be  very  inconsistent  for  me  to  look  with  approval  upon 
any  measure  that  infringes  upon  the  inalienable  rights  of 
white  men,  whether  or  not  they  are  born  in  another 
land  or  speak  a  different  language  from  our  own." 

The  Republicans  of  Illinois  held  their  annual  con- 
vention in  Decatur,  Macon  County,  May  10,  1859. 


After  a  Great  Struggle  183 

Lincoln  was  present,  and  as  soon  as  his  tall  form 
was  seen  on  the  platform,  the  entire  assemblage, 
forgetting  everything  else,  rose  as  one  man  and 
cheered  and  cheered  again,  until,  as  one  who  was 
present  has  said,  "it  seemed  as  if  they  never  would 
stop."  Not  often  do  men  who  have  passed  through 
defeat  receive  such  a  greeting  as  that  given  to  the 
non-elected  candidate  for  United  States  Senator. 
When  order  was  restored,  the  Republican  Governor 
of  the  State,  Richard  Oglesby,  said  that  there  was 
at  the  door  an  old-time  Macon  County  Democrat 
who  had  a  contribution  to  make  to  the  convention. 
The  curiosity  of  the  delegates  was  stimulated,  and 
they  looked — to  see  two  ancient  fence  rails,  decorated 
with  ribbons  of  red,  white,  and  blue,  borne  into 
the  hall  by  Thomas  Hanks,  on  the  rails  being  the 
inscription:  "Abraham  Lincoln,  the  Rail  Candidate 
for  the  Presidency  in  1860.  Two  rails  from  a  lot 
of  three  thousand,  made  in  1830  by  Thomas  Hanks 
and  Abe  Lincoln,  whose  father  was  the  first  pioneer 
in  Macon  County."  This  was  Lincoln's  first  public 
nomination  to  the  Presidency.  The  effect  of  the 
demonstration  can  only  be  faintly  imagined. 

These  were  rails  split  by  Lincoln  and  Hanks  when, 
as  we  know,  young  Abraham  tarried  with  his  father, 
after  building  a  log  cabin  and  ploughing  their  first 
field  in  Illinois,  long  enough  to  fence  in  a  small 
parcel  of  land  sown  with  grain.  Years  after,  Lin- 
coln, being  asked  if  he  supposed  those  were  the 
veritable  rails  that  he  and  Hanks  had  made,  said: 
"I  wouldn't  make  my  affidavit  that  they  were. 
But  Hanks  and  I  did  make  rails  on  that  piece  of 


184  Abraham  Lincoln 

ground,  although  I  think  I  could  make  better  rails 
now;  and  I  did  say  that  if  there  were  any  rails  that 
we  had  split,  I  would  n't  wonder  if  those  were  the 
rails." 

Lincoln  did  not  believe  in  what  we  call  "stage 
tricks,"  and  he  was  not  greatly  pleased  with  the  rail 
incident,  although  he  was  gratified  by  the  enthusi- 
asm of  his  friends  when  they  saw  this  evidence  of 
his  humble  and  useful  youthful  toil.  He  took  good 
care  to  say  that  the  introduction  of  these  reminders 
of  the  past  life  of  the  young  backwoodsman  was  a 
surprise  to  him.  He  never  ceased  to  be  sorry  that, 
when  he  was  obliged  to  split  rails,  he  could  not  have 
been  in  college,  or  devoting  his  time  to  great  and 
useful  study.  But  for  all  that,  from  that  day  for- 
ward Lincoln  was  hailed  as  "the  rail-splitter  of 
Illinois."  And  when  he  became  in  fact  a  regular 
candidate  before  the  people,  some  said:  "Will  he 
split  the  Union  as  he  used  to  split  rails?" 

During  the  winter  of  1859-60,  Lincoln  visited, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  the  Territory  of  Kansas, 
for  which  he  had  done  so  much.  Tremendous  en- 
thusiasm greeted  him  wherever  he  appeared.  In 
Leavenworth,  it  is  said,  notwithstanding  a  great 
storm  that  raged  in  the  streets,  he  was  met  by  a 
great  procession  of  people  who  escorted  him  to  his 
hotel,  vast  throngs  being  gathered  on  the  sidewalks 
cheering,  every  available  coign  of  vantage  being 
occupied  by  persons  greedy  for  a  sight  of  him. 

In  September,  1859,  Lincoln  spoke  several  times 
in  Ohio,  and,  being  near  the  Kentucky  border,  at 
Cincinnati  he  addressed  a  part  of  his  speech  to 


After  a  Great  Struggle  185 

natives  of  that  State,  asking  them,  among  other 
things,  what  they  would  do  with  their  part  of  the 
Union,  if  they  took  it  away,  as  they  were  now  be- 
ginning to  threaten  that  they  would.  "Are  you 
going  to  keep  it  alongside  of  us  outrageous  fellows?" 
he  asked.  "Or  are  you  going  to  build  up  a  wall, 
some  way,  between  your  country  and  ours,  by  which 
that  movable  property  of  yours  can't  come  over 
here  any  more,  to  the  danger  of  your  losing  it?" 

Early  in  1860,  Lincoln  received  an  invitation  to 
speak  in  Plymouth  Church,  of  which  Henry  Ward 
Beecher  was  pastor,  in  Brooklyn.  He  accepted  the 
invitation,  but  the  place  of  assembling  was  subse- 
quently changed  to  the  Cooper  Union,  one  of  the 
largest  halls  in  the  United  States.  It  was  filled 
when  Lincoln,  somewhat  dismayed  by  this  his  first 
introduction  to  the  people  of  the  Eastern  States, 
rose  to  speak.  He  had  been  presented  to  the 
audience  by  William  Cullen  Bryant,  poet  and  editor. 
On  the  platform  and  around  him  were  some  of  the 
great  men  of  the  age  and  city — jurists,  scholars, 
orators,  and  critics.  He  had  prepared  a  very  differ- 
ent sort  of  speech  from  that  which  some  before  him 
had  expected.  This  was  not  a  crowd  to  be  amused 
with  queer  stories,  rough  wit,  and  comical  anecdotes. 
The  speech  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  ever 
delivered  in  the  city  of  New  York.  It  was  a  masterly 
exposition  of  the  history  of  the  early  days  of  the 
Republic,  when  our  political  institutions  were  in  pro- 
cess of  formation,  special  reference  being  made  to 
the  slavery  question  as  then  considered.  It  was 
a  scholarly,  skilfully  framed,  and  closely  logical 


1 86  Abraham  Lincoln 

address.  His  style  of  delivery  was  so  fresh  and 
vigorous,  his  manner  of  illustration  so  clear  and 
easily  understood,  that  the  audience  drank  in  every 
word  with  delight.  The  vast  auditorium  was  as 
hushed  as  death  (save  for  Lincoln's  own  voice)  when 
he  was  drawing  out  some  fine  point,  some  new  line 
of  argument  supported  by  facts  hitherto  unknown  or 
forgotten ;  and  irrepressible  thunders  of  applause  burst 
forth  when,  the  way  being  cleared,  the  proposition 
sought  to  be  established  was  set  before  the  people. 

This  is  the  testimony  of  one  who  was  present  on 
that  historic  occasion: 

"When  Lincoln  rose  to  speak,  I  was  greatly  disap- 
pointed. He  was  tall,  tall — oh,  how  tall !  and  so  angular 
and  awkward  that  I  had,  for  an  instant,  a  feeling  of  pity 
for  so  ungainly  a  man.  His  clothes  were  black  and  ill- 
fitting,  badly  wrinkled — as  if  they  had  been  jammed 
carelessly  into  a  small  trunk.  His  bushy  head,  with  the 
stiff  black  hair  thrown  back,  was  balanced  on  a  long  and 
lean  head-stalk,  and  when  he  raised  his  hands  in  an 
opening  gesture,  I  noticed  that  they  were  very  large.  He 
began  in  a  low  tone  of  voice — as  if  he  were  used  to  speak- 
ing out-doors  and  was  afraid  of  speaking  too  loud.  He 
said  'Mr.  Cheerman,'  instead  of  'Mr.  Chairman,'  and 
employed  many  other  words  with  an  old-fashioned  pro- 
nunciation. I  said  to  myself :  '  Old  fellow,  you  won't  do ; 
it 's  all  very  well  for  the  wild  West,  but  this  will  never  go 
down  in  New  York. '  But  pretty  soon  he  began  to  get  into 
his  subject ;  he  straightened  up,  made  regular  and  grace- 
ful gestures ;  his  face  lighted  as  with  an  inward  fire ;  the 
whole  man  was  transfigured.  I  forgot  his  clothes,  his 
personal  appearance,  and  his  individual  peculiarities. 


After  a  Great  Struggle  187 

Presently,  forgetting  myself,  I  was  on  my  feet  with  the 
rest,  yelling  like  a  wild  Indian,  cheering  this  wonderful 
man.  In  the  close  parts  of  his  argument,  you  could  hear 
the  gentle  sizzling  of  the  gas-burners.  When  he  reached 
a  climax,  the  thunders  of  applause  were  terrific.  It  was  a 
great  speech.  When  I  came  out  of  the  hall,  my  face 
glowing  with  excitement  and  my  frame  all  a-quiver,  a 
friend,  with  his  eyes  aglow,  asked  me  what  I  thought  of 
Abe  Lincoln,  the  rail-splitter.  I  said :  '  He  's  the  greatest 
man  since  St.  Paul.'  And  I  think  so  yet." 

The  impression  made  by  Lincoln  on  the  much- 
dreaded  Eastern  people  was  highly  favorable  to  his 
training,  ability,  and  genius.  The  backwoodsman 
at  last  had  conquered  one  of  the  most  critical  and 
cultivated  audiences  to  be  gathered  in  the  RepuHic. 
It  may  be  said  here  that  Lincoln  took  for  his  theme 
that  night  the  saying  of  his  old  adversary,  Douglas : 
"Our  fathers,  when  they  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,  understood  this  question  [the 
question  of  slavery]  just  as  well,  and  even  better 
than  we  do  now."  This,  as  Lincoln  said,  gave  him 
and  Douglas  a  common  starting-point  for  discussion. 
His  speech  was  devoted,  for  the  most  part,  to  an 
inquiry  into  what  the  fathers  who  framed  the 
government  thought  of  and  did  about  slavery;  and 
he  showed,  by  conclusive  and  irrefutable  argument 
and  citations  from  history,  that  the  fathers,  whom 
Douglas  so  confidently  referred  to,  acted  as^though 
they  believed  that  the  Federal  Government  had  no 
power  to  put  slavery  into  the  Territories.  The  next 
section  of  his  speech  was  a  kindly  and  almost 
affectionate  address  to  the  people  of  the  South. 


1 88  Abraham  Lincoln 

The  concluding  part  was  addressed  to  Republicans, 
and  he  closed  with  these  words:  "Neither  let  us  be 
slandered  from  our  duty  by  false  accusations  against 
us,  nor  frightened  from  it  by  menaces  of  destruction 
to  the  Government.  Let  us  have  faith  that  right 
makes  might,  and  in  that  faith,  let  us,  to  the  end, 
dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 

All  who  read  or  heard  that  speech  marvelled 
greatly  at  its  pure  logic,  its  keen  analysis,  and  its 
lucid  and  unimpeachable  English.  It  was  widely 
circulated  next  day  in  the  morning  newspapers  of 
the  city,  and  went  far  and  wide  as  a  campaign  docu- 
ment from  the  rooms  of  the  Republican  Committee. 
A  professor  of  rhetoric  in  Yale  College  came  to  hear 
Lincoln.  He  was  so  impressed  by  what  he  heard 
that  he  took  out  his  note-book,  made  notes  of  the 
address,  and  next  day  gave  this  to  his  class  as  a 
model;  and,  not  satisfied  with  that,  followed  him  to 
Meriden,  Connecticut,  where  he  again  drank  in  the 
orator's  marvellous  eloquence.  All  this  was  to  Lin- 
coln "very  extraordinary,"  as  he  expressed  it.  He 
had  never,  in  his  modest  estimate  of  his  own  abilities, 
expected  to  create  any  such  marked  impression  in 
the  East.  He  had  imbibed  the  current  half-jealous 
notions  of  the  West,  whose  people  too  commonly 
regarded  their  brothers  of  the  Eastern  States  as 
more  likely  to  estimate  a  man  by  what  he  seemed 
to  be  than  by  what  he  did.  He  went  home  gratified  by 
his  discovery  that  he  was  recognized  as  an  original 
and  powerful  man,  gifted  with  genius,  and  com- 
mending himself  to  the  people  by  his  great-hearted- 
ness  and  native  nobility. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

ELECTED   TO   THE    PRESIDENCY. 

Rending  of  the  Democratic  Party — The  National  Convention  of  1860 
— Lincoln  Nominated  at  Chicago — A  Memorable  Scene — Popu- 
lar Enthusiasm — Four  Tickets  in  the  Field — Lincoln's  Great 
Triumph. 

IN  the  spring  of  1860  the  South  was  dismayed.  All 
*  hope  of  securing  Kansas  as  a  slave  State  was 
gone.  A  hostile  majority  in  the  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives made  impossible  the  admission  of  Kansas 
under  the  odious  and  fraudulent  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution. The  purchase  of  Cuba  was  now  also  im- 
possible. California  had  long  since  been  admitted 
as  a  free  State,  in  spite  of  the  threats  and  promises 
of  the  pro-slavery  administration.  All  schemes  for 
the  acquiring  of  new  territory  for  the  expansion  of 
the  slave  power  had  failed  utterly.  A  new  President 
was  about  to  be  chosen.  The  Democratic  party 
was  rent  into  two  seemingly  forever  irreconcilable 
parties — Lecompton  and  Anti-Lecompton.  Threats 
of  secession  were  freely  made.  Many  thought  that 
these  were  mere  bluster,  words  intended  to  be  taken 
back  if  the  South  could  be  reassured.  And  some 
timorous  people  wanted  the  South  to  be  reassured. 
In  his  Cooper  Union  speech,  Lincoln,  addressing 
himself  to  the  threatening  class,  said: 

"You  say  you  will  destroy  the  Union;  and  then  you 

189 


190  Abraham  Lincoln 

say  the  great  crime  of  having  destroyed  it  will  be  put  upon 
us.  That  is  cool.  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to  my 
ear,  and  mutters  through  his  teeth :  '  Stand  and  deliver, 
or  I  shall  kill  you,  and  then  you  will  be  a  murderer.'  To 
be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded  of  me — my  money — 
was  my  own ;  but  it  was  no  more  my  own  than  my  vote 
is  my  own;  and  a  threat  of  death  to  me  to  extort  my 
money,  and  threat  of  destruction  to  the  Union  to  extort 
my  vote,  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  in  principle." 

With  these  mutterings  in  the  air,  the  Democratic 
convention  to  nominate  a  candidate  for  the  Presi- 
dency assembled  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina, 
April  23,  1860.  It  does  not  now  seem  likely  that 
the  Northern  and  the  Southern  leaders  expected  to 
be  able  to  unite  on  any  candidate.  Douglas  was 
the  one  man  most  prominent  in  the  party.  The 
Northern  Democrats  would  have  him  and  no  other. 
But  his  speeches  during  the  canvass  with  Lincoln, 
as  well  as  his  later  opposition  to  the  Lecompton 
Constitution  for  Kansas,  had  ruined  his  chances 
with  the  South.  Nothing  short  of  an  unconditional 
declaration  in  favor  of  slavery  would  satisfy  these 
determined  champions  of  slavery.  After  days  of 
fruitless  discussion,  the  Democratic  convention  was 
torn  into  pieces.  The  pro-slavery  delegates  with- 
drew in  a  body,  and  organized  in  another  building 
what  they  called  a  "constitutional  convention." 
No  nominations  were  made,  however,  at  that  time, 
and  the  convention  adjourned  to  meet  in  Richmond, 
Virginia.  The  other  wing  of  the  party  remained  in 
convention  in  Charleston,  and,  after  fifty -seven  un- 
successful ballotings,  they,  too,  gave  it  up  and  ad- 


Elected  to  the  Presidency  191 

journed  to  meet  in  Baltimore,  June  i8th.  May  gth, 
.there  met  in  Baltimore  a  convention  of  elderly 
Whigs  and  "Know- Nothings,"  who  nominated  John 
Bell,  of  Tennessee,  for  President,  and  Edward 
Everett,  of  Massachusetts,  for  Vice-President.  This 
was  the  so-called  conservative  ticket,  intended  to 
pour  oil  on  the  troubled  waters,  and  elect  a  President 
that  should  have  no  ideas,  no  notions,  no  policy,  on 
the  subject  of  slavery. 

The  Richmond  convention,  composed  of  pro- 
slavery  Democrats,  nominated  John  C.  Breckin- 
ridge,  afterward  a  Rebel  general,  for  President. 
Subsequently,  the  regular  convention,  as  it  was  to 
be  considered  (although  only  the  anti-Lincoln  Dem- 
ocrats were  left  in  it),  met  in  Baltimore,  and  nomi- 
nated Stephen  A.  Douglas  for  President.  The  breach 
between  the  Northern  and  Southern  Democrats  was 
complete,  irreparable. 

There  was  intense  excitement  all  over  the  Republic 
when  the  Republican  national  convention  assembled 
in  Chicago,  June  17,  1860.  Everybody  felt  that  a 
crisis  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation  had  now  come. 
The  Democratic  party  was  hopelessly  divided  on 
the  great  and  vital  question  of  human  slavery.  At 
that  time  there  were  nearly  four  millions  of  human 
beings  held  in  bondage  in  the  United  States,  bought 
and  sold  as  if  they  were  cattle,  or  chattels.  The 
States  in  which  slavery  was  recognized  as  a  divine 
and  righteous  institution  were  solidly  united  in  an 
attempt  to  force  that  institution  into  the  free  Terri- 
tories, and  so  make  the  laws  of  the  free  Republic  that 
slave  property  would  be  safe  everywhere,  that  black 


192  Abraham  Lincoln 

men  and  women  should  be  sacred  as  property  in 
every  State  in  the  Union,  and  no  fugitive  from 
bondage  should  be  safe  anywhere  on  any  rood  of 
land  over  which  the  American  flag  waved.  The 
party  now  about  to  set  its  candidates  in  the  field 
was  irrevocably  opposed  to  the  further  extension  of 
the  alleged  rights  of  slavery  in  any  direction  what- 
ever. No  man  could  be  nominated  by  that  party 
who  was  not  irretrievably  and  unmistakably  in  favor 
of  the  fundamental  principle  to  which,  through  Lin- 
coln's advice,  it  had  been  already  pledged,  that  "all 
men  are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  in- 
alienable rights,  among  which  are  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

The  city  of  Chicago  was  crowded  with  strangers 
from  every  part  of  the  United  States.  It  was  es- 
timated that  twenty  thousand  people  were  gathered 
in  and  around  the  vast  building,  called  the  "Wig- 
wam," in  which  the  convention  was  to  be  held,  only 
a  small  portion  of  whom  could  obtain  admittance. 
The  platform  of  resolutions  adopted  by  the  con- 
vention contained  the  political  principles  that  had 
already  been  announced  in  many  different  forms  by 
Lincoln,  during  his  unparalleled  canvass  of  the 
Northern  States.  Joshua  R.  Giddings,  of  Ohio,  an 
old-time  anti-slavery  man,  offered  for  the  conven- 
tion one  more  plank,  the  phrase  from  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  affirming  the  birthright  of 
freedom  granted  to  every  man.  Strange  to  say, 
there  was  some  opposition  to  the  adoption  of  this 
immortal  sentence.  There  lingered  in  the  conven- 
tion some  little  element  of  timidity  on  the  anti- 


Elected  to  the  Presidency  193 

slavery  issue.  A  few  men  in  the  party  were  yet 
afraid  of  being  confounded  with  the  long-hated  and 
dreaded  "Abolitionists."  George  W.  Curtis,  an 
impetuous  and  eloquent  young  delegate  from  New 
York,  made  an  impassioned  plea  for  the  phrase 
offered  by  Giddings.  It  was  accepted,  and  the 
whole  series  of  ringing  and  courageous  resolutions 
were  adopted  by  the  convention  amid  the  wildest 
enthusiasm.  A  tremendous  roar  went  up  from 
the  assembled  thousands  in  the  building.  Other 
throngs  without  took  up  the  cheer,  and  a  vast  wave 
of  sound  went  thundering  down  the  lake-side,  telling 
the  world  that  at  last  a  great  national  party  had 
asserted  in  unmistakable  language  the  right  of  man 
to  freedom. 

Then  the  balloting  began.  Mr.  William  M.  Evarts, 
of  New  York,  placed  before  the  convention  the  name 
of  William  H.  Seward,  of  that  State.  In  like  man- 
ner, Mr.  Judd,  of  Illinois,  nominated  Abraham  Lin- 
coln. Mr.  Dayton,  of  New  Jersey,  Simon  Cameron, 
of  Pennsylvania,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  of  Ohio,  Ed- 
ward Bates,  of  Missouri,  and  John  McLean,  of  Ohio, 
were  subsequently  named.  But  only  the  names  of 
Seward  and  Lincoln,  the  two  great  leaders  of  the 
new  party,  provoked  much  enthusiasm.  When 
these  were  mentioned,  their  friends  sent  up  shouts 
that  reverberated  like  the  surges  of  the  sea  smiting 
on  the  shore.  Now  the  audience  adjusted  itself  to 
the  real  business  of  the  day.  Telegraph  operators 
sat  ready  with  their  instruments  to  send  the  news 
abroad.  An  army  of  newspaper  reporters,  their 
pencils  poised  to  note  events  that  were  coming, 


194  Abraham  Lincoln 

crowded  the  platform  allotted  to  the  press.  The 
air  was  hushed.  Everybody  knew  that  the  supreme 
moment  had  arrived.  A  gi;eat  act  in  the  drama  of 
national  history  was  about  to  begin.  The  roll  of 
the  States  was  called  for  the  first  ballot.  It  was 
evident  that  this  would  be  inconclusive;  but  every 
ear  was  strained  to  catch  the  slightest  whisper  from 
the  delegations  that  were  to  cast  the  vote  of  their 
several  States.  Now  and  again  a  roar  of  applause 
would  break  forth,  as  if  the  delegates  were  unable 
to  restrain  themselves,  intense  as  was  their  desire  to 
hear  the  result  from  each  other.  Such  a  burst  went 
up  whenever  New  York  steadily  cast  her  seventy 
votes  for  Seward,  the  well-beloved  son  of  the  Em- 
pire State.  And  such  a  burst  shook  the  air  when 
Indiana  and  Illinois  gave  their  solid  votes  to  Lincoln. 
The  first  ballot  was  as  follows:  William  H.  Seward, 
one  hundred  and  seventy-three  and  a  half ;  Abraham 
Lincoln,  one  hundred  and  two;  Edward  Bates, 
forty-eight;  Simon  Cameron,  fifty  and  a  half;  Sal- 
mon P.  Chase,  forty-nine.  The  remaining  forty-two 
votes  were  scattered  among  John  McLean,  Benjamin 
F.  Wade,  William  L.  Dayton,  John  M.  Reed,  Jacob 
Collamer,  Charles  Sumner,  and  John  C.  Fremont. 
There  was  no  choice,  two  hundred  and  thirty-three 
of  the  total  four  hundred  and  sixty-five  votes  cast 
being  necessary  to  nominate. 

On  the  second  ballot,  Lincoln  gained  seventy-nine 
votes  from  Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  and  Pennsyl- 
vania, receiving  one  hundred  and  eighty-one,  all 
told.  Seward  gained  eleven,  having  one  hundred 
and  eighty-four  and  a  half,  all  told.  The  third 


Elected  to  the  Presidency  195 

ballot  began  amid  the  most  tense  interest,  for  all 
felt  that  this  must  determine  the  contest  for  the 
nomination.  Thousands  on  the  floor  and  in  the 
galleries  followed  the  ballotings  with  their  pencils, 
silently  keeping  tally  of  the  votes  as  they  were  an- 
nounced to  the  chairman  by  the  spokesmen  of  the 
several  delegations  of  the  States.  Before  the  secre- 
taries could  figure  up  and  verify  the  result,  it  was 
whispered  about  the  convention,  which  fairly  trem- 
bled with  suppressed  excitement,  that  Lincoln  came 
near  to  .a  nomination.  He  had  two  hundred  and 
thirty-one  and  a  half  votes,  lacking  only  a  vote  and 
a  half  of  the  nomination.  Then,  while  the  house 
was  as  still  as  if  it  were  empty,  Mr.  Carter,  of  Ohio, 
rose  and  said  that  four  of  the  votes  of  that  State 
were  changed  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  work  was 
done.  Lincoln  was  nominated. 

Turning  his  face  upward  to  a  skylight  in  the  roof, 
where  stood  an  intent  watchman,  one  of  the  secre- 
taries cried, ' '  Fire  the  salute !  Lincoln  is  nominated ! ' ' 
The  elate  watchman  fled  along  the  roof  of  the  Wig- 
wam and  shouted  the  glad  tidings  to  those  below. 
Inside  the  building,  after  an  instant's  pause,  like 
that  in  the  midst  of  a  storm,  a  hurricane  of  en- 
thusiasm, almost  maddening,  broke  forth.  Men 
flung  away  their  hats,  danced  in  a  wild  delirium  of 
delight,  hugged  and  kissed  each  other,  and  cheered 
and  cheered  again,  as  if  they  could  find  no  vent  to 
their  overpowering  joy.  The  vast  Wigwam  shook 
with  the  torrent  of  noise.  Without,  surging  crowds 
broke  forth  into  answering  roars  as  the  cheering 
inside  died  away,  and  this  was  taken  up  by  those 


196  Abraham  Lincoln 

within,  and  thus  tumult  replied  to  tumult.  On  the 
roof  of  a  great  hotel,  not  far  away,  a  battery  of 
cannon  volleyed  and  thundered ;  the  multitudinous 
wave  of  sound  spread  through  the  city,  its  streets 
and  lanes,  and  drifted  far  over  Lake  Michigan,  tell- 
ing the  world  that  Lincoln,  the  beloved,  the  great, 
grand  man,  scarce  known  outside  of  his  own  repub- 
lic, was  nominated.  And  in  this  way,  the  son  of 
Thomas  Lincoln,  the  backwoodsman,  stepped  out 
upon  the  mighty  stage  on  which  was  to  be  enacted 
one  of  the  most  tremendous  tragedies  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

The  convention  adjourned  for  an  hour,  and  later 
in  the  day  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine,  was  nomi- 
nated for  Vice-President  with  Lincoln.  At  home, 
in  Springfield,  Lincoln  waited  in  a  newspaper  office, 
surrounded  by  friends,  for  the  news  that  should 
make  him  the  national  candidate  of  his  party,  or 
place  him  on  the  retired  list  of  American  politicians. 
At  last,  a  messenger,  bearing  the  fateful  message  in 
his  hand,  came  in  from  the  telegraph  office,  with 
difficulty  keeping  his  face  from  showing  his  inward 
excitement.  With  great  solemnity,  he  advanced  to 
Lincoln's  side  and  said:  "The  convention  has  made 
a  nomination,  and  Seward  is — the  second  man  on 
the  list."  Then  jumping  on  a  table,  he  cried: 
"Three  cheers  for  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  next  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States!"  We  can  imagine  with 
what  a  hearty  good- will  those  cheers  were  given,  and 
how  the  notes  thereof  rang  out  in  the  streets  of 
Springfield  and  were  echoed  far  and  wide.  After 
shaking  hands  with  his  friends  and  receiving  their 


Elected  to  the  Presidency  197 

fervent  congratulations,  Lincoln  pocketed  the  tele- 
gram, and,  saying  ' '  There  is  a  little  woman  on  Eighth 
Street  who  would  like  to  hear  about  this,"  walked 
home  to  tell  the  news  to  his  household. 

It  was  the  duty  of  the  convention  to  give  Lincoln 
formal  and  official  notice  of  his  nomination.  A 
committee,  with  Mr.  George  Ashmun,  of  Massachu- 
setts, at  its  head,  was  accordingly  appointed  to  wait 
upon  the  nominee  and  serve  him  with  the  usual 
notice.  Meantime,  however,  the  citizens  of  Spring- 
field had  fired  a  salute  of  one  hundred  guns  to  speak 
their  joy  over  the  nomination  of  one  who  was  un- 
doubtedly their  popular  idol.  Then  a  vast  con- 
course of  the  people  streamed  up  the  street  where 
Lincoln's  humble  cottage  stood,  and  invaded  the 
hospitable  home,  as  many  as  could  crowd  in,  eager 
to  take  his  hand  and  tell  him  how  glad  they  were 
that  this  great  honor  had  been  laid  upon  him.  Some 
of  his  devoted  Springfield  admirers,  thinking  that  a 
delegation  from  the  great  national  convention  would 
expect  to  receive  a  more  liberal  supply  of  refresh- 
ment than  the  total  abstainers  of  the  Lincoln  family 
would  be  likely  to  have  in  the  house,  sent  him  a 
supply  of  wines  for  this  occasion.  These  unfamiliar 
fluids  gave  Lincoln  some  uneasiness,  and,  accepting 
the  advice  of  another,  he  sent  them  to  their  donors, 
with  a  courteous  explanation  of  his  inability  to  use 
them.  He  had  never  offered  wines  to  his  friends; 
he  could  not  do  it  now.  The  committee  arrived. 
They  drank  the  health  of  the  President  that  was  to 
be,  in  water  from  the  spring. 

On  the  23d  of  June,  Lincoln  wrote  a  formal  letter 


198  Abraham  Lincoln 

accepting  the  nomination  to  the  Presidency.  It  was 
a  very  short  and  straightforward  document.  He 
accepted  the  platform  of  principles  laid  down  by  the 
convention  and  concluded  in  the  following  words: 

» 

"  Imploring  the  assistance  of  Divine  Providence,  and 
with  due  regard  to  the  views  and  feelings  of  all  who  were 
represented  in  the  convention,  to  the  rights  of  all  the 
States  and  Territories  and  people  of  the  nation,  to  the 
inviolability  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  perpetual  union, 
harmony,  and  prosperity  of  all,  I  am  most  happy  to  co- 
operate for  the  practical  success  of  the  principles  declared 
by  the  convention." 

The  Presidential  canvass  of  that  year  was  unique 
in  the  history  of  the  American  Republic.  The  en- 
thusiasm of  the  people  of  the  free  States  broke  over 
all  bounds.  To  use  a  common  Western  expression, 
it  swept  the  country  like  a  prairie  fire.  The  friends 
of  freedom  organized  semi-military  companies,  the 
like  of  which  have  appeared  in  political  campaigns 
since  that  day.  These  were  called  "Wide-awakes," 
and,  uniformed  and  carrying  torches  at  night,  or 
bannerets  in  the  daytime,  they  turned  out  in  vast 
numbers  whenever  there  was  a  demonstration  by 
the  Republicans;  and  this  was  very  often.  Cam- 
paign songs  were  composed,  set  to  music,  and  sung 
all  over  the  North,  the  rousing  choruses  being  taken 
up  and  made  as  familiar  to  everybody  as  household 
words.  The  log  cabin  of  the  Harrison  campaign 
was  brought  out  to  do  duty  again  as  a  token  of  the 
humble  origin  of  the  candidate.  Rails  and  rail- 
splitting  were  popular  symbols,  and  innumerable  de- 


Elected  to  the  Presidency  199 

vices  were  invented  to  rouse  to  a  still  higher  pitch 
the  fervor  of  the  Republicans,  and  to  sweep  into  the 
onrushing  wave  the  halting  and  the  vacillating. 

It  must  not  be  understood  that  there  was  no  oppo- 
sition to  Lincoln.  On  the  contrary,  as  the  election 
returns  showed,  there  was  a  very  strong  opposition; 
and  the  leaders  of  this  party  manifested  their  hatred 
of  the  Republicans  and  their  candidate  by  the  most 
violent  and  abusive  language.  The  terms  "Black 
Republicans,"  "Negro  Lovers,"  and  the  like  were 
among  the  least  offensive  of  the  epithets  showered 
upon  the  members  and  candidates  of  the  new,  ag- 
gressive party.  Douglas,  to  the  surprise  of  many  of 
his  best  friends  and  followers,  took  the  stump  in  his 
own  behalf.  It  had  never  been  the  usage  for  a 
Presidential  candidate  to  speak  in  advocacy  of  his 
own  election,  although  men  had  often  done  this, 
especially  in  the  West,  when  they  were  candidates 
for  less  important  offices.  Many  felt  that  this  was 
a  doubtful  experiment  for  Douglas  to  make;  and 
many  said  that  it  showed  how  desperate  was  his 
case.  His  speeches  were  designed  to  prove  that  he 
was  the  only  safe  candidate  before  the  people, 
Breckinridge  representing  the  sectionalism  of  slavery, 
and  Lincoln  the  sectionalism  of  anti-slavery;  but  it 
appeared  that  both  sections  of  the  country  had  re- 
solved to  have  no  more  experiments.  This  time 
the  question  of  slavery  extension  or  slavery  limita- 
tion was  to  be  settled  forever. 

Lincoln  stayed  quietly  at  home,  although  he  was 
sometimes  well-nigh  overwhelmed  with  visitors  from 
every  part  of  the  Union.  Some  of  these  came  from 


200  Abraham  Lincoln 

idle  curiosity ;  some  to  put  in  a  good  word  for  them- 
selves, in  case  the  candidate  should  be  chosen  and  have 
offices  to  fill.  Others  came  honestly  encouraging 
the  candidate,  now  widely  celebrated  and  so  greatly 
loved  as  a  man  of  the  people.  A  handsome  room  in 
the  State  capitol  was  assigned  to  Lincoln,  and  here 
he  received  his  visitors  during  the  exciting  months 
that  intervened  between  the  nomination  in  June 
and  the  election  in  November.  But  he  made  no 
speeches,  and  refrained,  with  his  usual  wisdom, 
from  making  any  public  demonstration  whatever. 

When  the  votes  were  in,  at  the  end  of  that  famous 
canvass,  it  was  found  that  Lincoln  had  one  hundred 
and  eighty  of  the  electoral  votes  of  the  States,  and 
1,866,452  men  had  voted  for  him.  Breckinridge  had 
seventy-two  electoral  votes,  and  he  had  been  the 
express  choice  of  847,953  voters.  Douglas  had 
twelve  electoral  votes;  his  popular  vote  was  1,375,- 
157.  Bell  had  thirty-nine  electoral  votes,  and  a 
popular  vote  of  590,631.  Lincoln  had  received  a 
majority  of  the  electoral  votes,  but  it  will  be  noticed 
that  he  had  not  a  majority  of  all  the  votes  of  the 
people,  the  four  candidates  in  the  field  having  divided 
the  popular  votes  unusually;  but,  notwithstanding 
this,  he  had  the  largest  popular  vote  that  had  been 
polled,  at  that  time,  for  any  Presidential  candidate. 

Lincoln  took  his  election  with  a  composure  not 
untinged  with  sadness.  A  tremendous  responsibility 
was  now  certain  to  be  placed  upon  him.  The  South 
had  openly  and  repeatedly  declared  an  intention  to 
break  up  the  Union,  by  leaving  it,  in  case  of  the 
election  of  the  Republican  candidate.  He  was  op- 


O    5 

CQ    > 


Elected  to  the  Presidency  201 

pressed  with  many  weighty  and  anxious  thoughts. 
On  the  day  when  the  news  came  of  his  triumph,  a 
strange  thing  happened  to  him.  Years  after,  when 
he  had  been  nominated  and  elected  a  second  time  to 
the  Presidency,  he  told  this  story  to  the  writer  of 
these  pages: 

"  It  was  just  after  my  election  in  1860,  when  the  news 
had  been  coming  in  thick  and  fast  all  day,  and  there  had 
been  a  great '  Hurrah,  boys ! '  so  that  I  was  well  tired  out, 
and  went  home  to  rest,  throwing  myself  down  on  a  lounge 
in  my  chamber.  Opposite  where  I  lay  was  a  bureau, 
with  a  swinging  glass  upon  it" — [and  here  he  got  up  and 
placed  furniture  to  illustrate  the  position] — "and,  look- 
ing in  that  glass,  I  saw  myself  reflected,  nearly  at  full 
length;  but  my  face,  I  noticed,  had  two  separate  and 
distinct  images,  the  tip  of  the  nose  of  one  being  about 
three  inches  from  the  tip  of  the  other.  I  was  a  little 
bothered,  perhaps  startled,  and  got  up  and  looked  in  the 
glass,  but  the  illusion  vanished.  On  lying  down  again  I 
saw  it  a  second  time — plainer,  if  possible,  than  before; 
and  then  I  noticed  that  one  of  the  faces  was  a  little  paler, 
say  five  shades,  than  the  other.  I  got  up  and  the  thing 
melted  away,  and  I  went  off,  and  in  the  excitement  of  the 
hour  forgot  all  about  it — nearly,  but  not  quite,  for  the 
thing  would  once  in  a  while  come  up,  and  give  me  a  little 
pang,  as  though  something  uncomfortable  had  happened. 
Later  in  the  day  I  told  my  wife  about  it,  and  a  few  days 
after  I  tried  the  experiment  again,  when  [with  a  laugh], 
sure  enough,  the  thing  came  again ;  but  I  never  succeeded 
in  bringing  the  ghost  back  after  that,  though  I  once  tried 
very  industriously  to  show  it  to  my  wife,  who  was  worried 
about  it  somewhat.  She  thought  it  was  'a sign'  that  I 
was  to  be  elected  to  a  second  term  of  office,  and  that  the 


202  Abraham  Lincoln 

paleness  of  one  of  the  faces  was  an  omen  that  I  should  not 
see  life  through  the  last  term." 

With  his  usual  good-sense,  Lincoln  studied  this 
for  a  while  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  an 
optical  illusion  caused  by  a  flaw  in  the  mirror.  Mrs. 
Lincoln  thought  it  was  "a  warning,"  and  that  it 
signified  that  her  husband  would  have  to  be  twice 
President  and  would  not  live  through  his  second 
term.  As  both  of  these  persons  talked  with  the 
writer  about  the  matter,  and  this  story  was  told  in 
an  article  written  by  him  in  Harper's  Magazine,  in 
July,  1865,  while  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  yet  alive  to  see  it, 
the  facts  are  here  set  down  as  originally  stated. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

AFTER  THE    ELECTION. 

The  President-Elect  and  the  Office-Seekers — A  Policy  Demanded — 
Treason  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet — Organization  of  the  Rebel  Con- 
federacy— Alarm  in  the  North — The  Star  of  the  West  Fired  On — 
A  Peace  Congress  in  the  Face  of  War. 

TT  is  difficult  for  anybody,  at  this  distance  of  time, 
•*•  and  when  all  things  are  at  peace  throughout  the 
Republic,  to  realize  how  great  was  the  burden  placed 
upon  Lincoln  by  his  election  to  the  Presidency. 
There  were  two  great  troubles — the  office-seekers 
and  the  impending  war.  The  first  of  these,  of 
course,  was  the  smaller,  but  it  was  none  the  less  a 
grievous  trial.  For,  in  addition  to  the  strain  that  it 
brought  upon  his  patience,  it  interfered  very  seriously 
with  his  attempt  to  think  over  the  greater  and  far 
more  trying  questions  that  must  soon  be  settled. 
Lincoln  was  good-natured,  patient,  kind,  desirous  of 
doing  whatever  was  asked  of  him,  in  reason.  It  was 
always  irksome  for  him  to  refuse  a  favor,  even  when 
the  petitioner  was  not  altogether  reasonable  or  de- 
serving. He  disliked  to  refer  applicants  to  others, 
his  subordinates.  He  never  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  any 
petitioner,  however  humble,  however  importunate. 
It  was  truly  said  of  him  that  his  patience  was  almost 
infinite.  It  is  easy  to  see,  therefore,  how  difficult  it 

. .    203 


204  Abraham  Lincoln 

was  for  his  immediate  friends  to  protect  him  from 
the  incursions  of  curiosity-seeking  and  office-seeking 
visitors,  then  and  afterwards. 

But,  with  all  his  good-humored  and  cheerful  man- 
ner towards  those  who  came,  it  soon  became  evident 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  promise  places  as  readily 
as  a  spendthrift,  newly  come  into  an  inheritance, 
might  spread  abroad  his  gold.  He  was  sublimely 
wise  in  his  treatment  of  all  who  came  to  him,  listen- 
ing to  their  "claims"  (for  all  had  these)  and  always 
manifesting  the  native  kindness  that  distinguished 
him.  But  men  who  had  been  on  familiar  terms  with 
him,  who  had  met  him  "riding  the  circuit,"  had  lis- 
tened to  his  unfailing  good  stories,  had  done  his 
party  real  service  in  the  late  fight,  or  had  been 
friendly  neighbors,  soon  learned  that  these  were  not 
sufficient  to  extort  from  him  the  promise  of  a  good 
office  when  he  should  be  in  the  place  where  offices 
were  to  be  given  out.  He  manifested  his  generosity 
towards  his  opponents  by  sketching  out  a  programme 
that  included  in  the  office-holders  of  his  administra- 
tion many  who  had  opposed  the  Republican  party 
in  its  very  latest  canvass.  He  would  have,  if  possi- 
ble, one  or  two  Southern  men  of  prominence  in  his 
Cabinet;  and  he  would  not  disturb  many,  then  in 
office,  who  had  proved  themselves  honest,  faithful, 
and  competent  public  servants.  When  this  outline 
of  policy  was  disclosed,  some  of  his  friends  were  not 
only  disappointed,  but  irritated.  Not  that  they 
wanted  offices  for  themselves  or  their  associates, 
but  it  was  contrary  to  the  policy  and  the  practice 
of  the  time  and  of  all  who  had  occupied  the  Presiden- 


After  the  Election  205 

tial  office  in  recent  years.  Nobody  had  then  even 
suggested  that  variety  of  reform  that  was  afterwards 
known  as  the  Civil-Service  Reform.  A  Democratic 
Secretary  of  State,  William  L.  Marcy,  had  invented 
the  taking  phrase,  ''To  the  victors  belong  the  spoils," 
and  Democratic  Presidents,  from  Andrew  Jackson 
down,  had  rigidly  enforced  the  doctrine  taught  by 
that  maxim.  President  Buchanan  had  been  un- 
usually severe  in  his  treatment  of  office-holders  who 
differed  with  him  and  his  administration  in  matters 
of  political  policy.  During  the  time  when  the  schism 
in  the  Democratic  party  was  widening  the  breach 
between  "Lecompton  Democrats"  and  "Anti-Le- 
compton  Democrats,"  Buchanan  and  his  secretaries 
had  made  strict  inquisition  among  all  office-holders 
for  those  who  espoused  the  cause  of  Douglas  and 
those  who  represented  what  was  loosely  called 
Douglas  Democracy.  In  California,  for  example, 
David  C.  Broderick,  an  Anti-Lecompton  Democrat, 
and  a  friend  of  Douglas,  had  been  elected  to  the 
United  States  Senate.  The  other  Senator  from  that 
State  was  William  M.  Gwin,  a  Southerner  by  birth 
and  devoted  to  the  slave-holding  interest.  All  the 
official  patronage  of  the  State  was  handed  over  to 
Gwin,  and  the  recommendations  to  office  by  Brod- 
erick were  treated  with  contemptuous  indifference. 
In  course  of  time,  so  furious  were  the  Lecompton 
Democrats  against  their  opponents  within  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  Broderick  was  inveigled  into  a  duel  by 
the  friends  of  the  Buchanan  administration,  and  was 
cruelly  killed  by  a  judge,  who,  when  the  war  broke 
out,  became  an  officer  in  the  Rebel  army. 


206  Abraham  Lincoln 

In  such  a  condition  of  affairs  as  this,  with  all  the 
public  offices  filled  with  the  appointees  of  a  pre- 
scriptive and  unrelenting  partisan  administration, 
most  Republican  leaders  were  unable  to  see  why 
Lincoln  should  hesitate  to  make  "a  clean  sweep" 
when  he  came  into  power.  Of  course,  those  patri- 
otic gentlemen  who  had  expected  the  rewards  of 
office  could  not  possibly  understand  why  a  single 
Democrat  should  be  allowed  to  stay  in  office  after 
the  newly  elected  President  should  himself  be  fairly 
installed;  and  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  there 
were  many  of  these  applicants  who,  temporarily,  at 
least,  were  more  concerned  about  the  just  disposition 
of  the  offices  than  they  were  about  the  condition  of 
the  whole  country,  now  trembling  on  the  brink  of 
civil  war.  Then,  again,  since  matters  had  grown  so 
grave,  thousands  of  well-meaning  people  were  ex- 
ceedingly anxious  to  know  what  Lincoln  proposed  to 
do  in  case  the  Southern  States  should  secede  from 
the  Union.  Would  he  make  any  concessions  in 
order  to  keep  them  from  taking  this  step?  What 
would  he  offer  them  to  induce  them  to  stay  in  the 
Union?  There  were  many  ready  to  advise  the 
President-elect;  and  some  of  them  offered  the  most 
fantastic  counsel.  More  than  one  timorous  soul 
proposed  that,  now  that  the  principle  of  self-govern- 
ment had  been  vindicated  at  the  polls,  and  the  people 
had  expressed  their  hostility  to  slavery,  Lincoln 
might  show  his  magnanimity  and  patriotism  by  re- 
signing the  Presidency,  and  demand  a  new  election 
on  the  basis  of  reconciliation  with  the  South. 

But  while  to  some  of  these  more  absurd  sugges- 


After  the  Election  207 

tions  Lincoln  gave  a  ready  and  decisive  answer,  on 
the  whole,  he  maintained  the  same  sagacious  silence 
that  he  had  kept  while  the  canvass  for  the  Presidency 
was  going  on.  To  all  comers  he  said,  in  effect,  that 
it  would  be  time  to  indicate  what  his  policy  was  to  be 
when  he  had  taken  office  at  Washington.  He  told 
applicants  that  his  past  record,  his  public  utterances, 
and  his  speeches  ought  to  make  manifest  what  his 
course  as  President  would  be.  Beyond  that,  he 
would  say  nothing.  His  inaugural  address  must 
needs  be  the  first  official  declaration  of  his  intentions, 
purposes,  wishes,  and  desires. 

Many  of  these  inquisitive  inquirers  were  put  off 
with  a  comical  story  or  a  bit  of  wise  humor ;  and  they 
did  not  like  it  any  better  that  their  febuff  should 
take  this  shape.  They  went  home  and  sourly  re- 
ported that  the  President-elect  was  a  buffoon,  a 
joker,  a  merry-andrew.  There  were  not  a  few  who 
were  glad  to  hear  anything  to  the  discredit  of  Lin- 
coln, and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  a  grave  injustice 
was  done  him,  long  before  he  took  his  seat  in  the 
Presidential  chair.  Perhaps  Lincoln  sometimes  made 
the  mistake  natural  to  men  of  a  natural  and  un- 
affected turn  of  mind,  and  presumed  that  the  good- 
sense  of  his  visitors  would  make  allowance  for  an 
artful  sportiveness  and  fancy.  But  many  of  these 
went  away  troubled  in  mind  and  full  of  wrong  no- 
tions of  Lincoln.  Nobody  that  ever  knew  Lincoln 
could  possibly  have  said  of  him  that  he  was  a  trifler 
or  an  inveterate  joker.  He  was  a  serious  and  deeply 
grave  man,  when  seriousness  and  gravity  were  in 
order ;  and  much  of  his  playfulness  was  assumed  for 


208  Abraham  Lincoln 

a  purpose,  or  to  lighten  his  load  of  care  and  divert 
his  mind  from  heavy  troubles.  On  the  whole,  those 
who  knew  him  best  unite  in  saying  that  his  disposi- 
tion was  a  sad  one  by  nature. 

How  Lincoln  regarded  religion  and  religious  things 
at  this  time  may  be  best  illustrated  in  a  report  from 
Mr.  Newton  Bateman,  of  Illinois,  regarding  a  con- 
versation he  held  with  Lincoln  just  before  the  elec- 
tion of  November,  1860.  Mr.  Bateman  was  State 
Superintendent  of  Public  Schools,  and  occupied  an 
office  near  the  apartment  surrendered  to  Lincoln  in 
the  statehouse  during  the  campaign.  The  Repub- 
lican Committee  had  made  a  careful  canvass  of  the 
city  of  Springfield,  showing  how  nearly  every  man 
was  to  vote  at  the  Presidential  election.  Lincoln 
turned  over  the  leaves  of  this  book,  one  day,  while 
Mr.  Bateman  was  in  his  company,  the  two  men  being 
alone  together.  Lincoln  scanned  the  list  of  the 
Springfield  clergymen,  and,  with  a  sad  face,  said  that 
of  the  twenty  all  but  three  were  against  him,  and 
that  very  many  of  the  members  of  the  churches  of 
these  clergymen  were  also  arrayed  on  that  side. 

"I  am  not  a  Christian,"  he  said.  "God  knows  I 
would  be  one.  But  I  have  carefully  read  the  Bible, 
and  I  do  not  so  understand  this  book" ;  and  here  he 
drew  a  New  Testament  from  his  bosom.  "These 
men  well  know,"  he  continued,  "that  I  am  for  free- 
dom in  the  Territories,  freedom  everywhere  as  far  as 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws  will  permit,  and  that 
my  opponents  are  for  slavery.  They  know  this; 
and  yet,  with  this  book  in  their  hands,  in  the  light  of 
which  human  knowledge  cannot  live  a  moment,  they 


After  the  Election  209 

are  going  to  vote  against  me.     I  do  not  understand 
it  at  all." 

Here  his  voice  was  choked  with  emotion,  and  he 
rose  and  walked  about  the  room  until  he  regained 
his  self-possession.  Then,  with  his  face  wet  with 
tears,  he  continued: 

"  I  know  there  is  a  God,  and  that  He  hates  injustice  and 
slavery.  I  see  the  storm  coming,  and  I  know  His  hand  is  in 
it.  If  He  has  a  place  and  work  for  me,  and  I  think  He  has, 
I  believe  I  am  ready.  I  am  nothing,  but  truth  is  every- 
thing. I  know  I  am  right,  because  I  know  that  liberty  is 
right,  for  Christ  teaches  it,  and  Christ  is  God.  I  have  told 
them  that  a  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand, 
and  Christ  and  reason  say  the  same  thing;  and  they 
will  find  it  so.  Douglas  does  n't  care  whether  slavery  is 
voted  up  or  voted  down,  but  God  cares,  and  humanity 
cares,  and  I  care ;  and  with  God's  help  I  shall  not  fail.  I 
may  not  see  the  end,  but  it  will  come  and  I  shall  be 
vindicated;  and  these  men  will  find  that  they  have  not 
read  their  Bibles  aright." 

Much  of  this,  and  other  words  to  the  same  import, 
was  said  as  if  Lincoln  was  thinking  aloud,  soliloquiz- 
ing, as  was  sometimes  his  wont.  Then  he  went  on, 
saying:  "Doesn't  it  appear  strange  that  men  can 
ignore  the  moral  aspects  of  this  contest  ?  A  revela- 
tion could  not  make  it  plainer  to  me  that  slavery  or 
this  Government  must  be  destroyed.  The  future 
would  be  something  awful,  as  I  look  at  it,  but  for 
this  rock  on  which  I  stand,"  alluding  to  the  Testa- 
ment which  he  held  in  his  hand;  "especially  with 
the  knowledge  of  how  these  ministers  are  going  to 


14. 


210  Abraham  Lincoln 

vote.  It  seems  as  if  God  had  borne  with  this  thing 
[slavery]  until  the  very  teachers  of  religion  had 
come  to  defend  it  from  the  Bible,  and  to  claim  for  it 
a  divine  character  and  sanction ;  and  now  the  cup  of 
iniquity  is  full,  and  the  vials  of  wrath  will  be  poured 
out."  ' 

These  words,  like  many  others  of  Lincoln's, 
uttered  before  he  was  chosen  to  the  Presidency — 
even  before  he  was  nominated,  as  some  of  them  were, 
—indicate  almost  a  certain  knowledge  of  coming 
events  which  is  very  like  prophecy.  It  is  not  un- 
likely that  Lincoln  saw  long  before  anybody  else  did 
that  he  would  be  the  nominee  of  his  party  in  1860, 
and  it  is  certain  that  he  saw  that  his  election  was 
assured  as  soon  as  the  nominations  were  all  made. 
There  is  something  awful  in  his  standing  here  at  the 
parting  of  the  ways,  his  private  life  on  the  one  hand 
and  his  public  life  on  the  other,  and  solemnly  pre- 
dicting, as  it  were,  the  day  of  wrath  that  was  coming 
upon  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Not  in  the 
South  alone,  but  even  in  New  England,  were  found 
clergymen  who  taught  and  preached  that  slavery 
was  right  and  just,  of  divine  origin,  and  that  men 
who  raised  their  hands  against  it  were  guilty  of  a 
species  of  high  treason.  Lincoln  had  looked  into  the 
heart  of  things;  and,  like  Thomas  Jefferson,  regard- 
ing this  great  wrong  against  humanity,  he  trembled 
for  his  country  when  he  remembered  that  God  is 
just. 

Threats  of  leaving  the  Union  came  loud  and 
vociferous  from  the  slave  States  as  soon  as  Lincoln's 
election  was  assured  and  the  returns  were  all  in.  It 


After  the  Election  211 

is  more  than  likely  that  these  threats  were  only  in 
consequence  of  a  long-laid  plan  to  leave  the  Union 
on  the  very  first  offering  of  an  excuse.  The  South 
could  not  live  amicably  alongside  of  free  territory. 
Lincoln  spoke  only  the  absolute  truth  when  he  said 
that  the  Government  could  exist  no  longer  half  slave 
and  half  free.  Now  that  the  triumph  of  what  they 
called  a  sectional  party  had  given  them  an  excuse, 
they  were  ready  to  go ;  but  they  must  needs  make  a 
great  deal  of  bluster  about  it.  They  went  out  with 
a  grand  display  of  resolutions  and  fiery  speeches. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  allies  of  treason  and  re- 
bellion in  the  Cabinet  were  doing  what  they  could  to 
make  things  easier  for  the  Rebel  States  when  the  final 
blow  should  come.  John  B.  Floyd,  a  Southern  man, 
was  Secretary  of  War,  and  he  scattered  the  army  all 
over  the  South,  one  of  its  largest  sections  being  sent 
as  far  away  as  possible  in  the  interior  of  Texas,  so 
that  it  should  not  be  at  hand  when  the  new  President 
should  come  to  the  national  capital.  Floyd  also 
moved  large  quantities  of  arms  and  munitions  of 
war  from  the  forts  and  arsenals  in  the  North  to  those 
in  the  South.  Mr.  Isaac  Toucey,  a  Northern  man, 
but  completely  in  the  hands  of  the  conspirators, 
sent  the  little  navy  of  the  United  States  to  the  four 
quarters  of  the  globe,  so  that  no  naval  force  should 
be  available  when  the  conspiracy  should  be  ripe. 
Howell  Cobb,  of  Georgia,  afterwards  a  general  in 
the  Rebel  army,  was  then  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
and  after  he  had  purposely  involved  the  national 
finances  in  difficulty,  he  resigned.  He  left  the 
Treasury  empty.  Attorney-General  Black  had  given 


212  Abraham  Lincoln 

his  official  opinion  that  neither  Congress  nor  the 
President  could  carry  on  any  war  against  any  State. 
James  Buchanan,  a  weak  old  man,  was  nominally 
President,  but  the  conspirators  in  the  Cabinet  carried 
forward  their  plans  with  a  high  hand.  Everything 
that  happened  in  governmental  circles  in  Washing- 
ton was  immediately  known  in  the  councils  of  the 
secessionists,  South  Carolina  being  the  hotbed  of 
treason.  The  Southern  Senators  and  Representa- 
tives, almost  without  exception,  remained  in  Wash- 
ington, occupying  their  desks  in  the  Senate  and 
House,  drawing  pay  and  official  perquisites  up  to 
the  last  moment ;  and,  holding  possession  of  the  Gov- 
ernment as  these  men  did,  they  were  at  the  same 
time  plotting  to  overthrow  it. 

Some  of  the  Northern  Democrats  who  had  stood  by 
Buchanan  and  his  party  until  now  began  to  murmur 
at  his  supple  willingness  to  help  the  cause  of  the 
rebellion,  now  assuming  formidable  proportions. 
Lewis  Cass,  Secretary  of  State,  resigned  because  the 
President  refused  to  send  reinforcements  to  Major 
Anderson,  who  was  shut  up  with  a  little  force  in  Fort 
Moultrie,  Charleston  Harbor.  This  is  the  same 
Anderson,  then  a  lieutenant,  who  mustered  Abraham 
Lincoln  into  the  service  of  the  United  States,  at 
Dixon's  Ferry,  during  the  Black  Hawk  war.  As 
soon  as  South  Carolina  should  secede  from  the  Union, 
Fort  Moultrie  and  other  fortifications  in  Charleston 
Harbor  were  certain  to  be  seized.  Mr.  Black,  too, 
resigned,  and  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  a  staunch  Demo- 
crat and  Unionist,  was  appointed  in  his  place.  Gen- 
eral John  A.  Dix,  of  New  York,  succeeded  Howell 


After  the  Election  213 

Cobb  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury.  It  was  this  un- 
flinching Union  man,  General  Dix,  who,  while  in  the 
Cabinet  of  Buchanan,  sent  to  the  commander  of  a 
threatened  revenue  cutter  the  famous  despatch: 
"If  any  man  attempts  to  haul  down  the  American 
flag,  shoot  him  on  the  spot! "  Joseph  Holt,  of  Ken- 
tucky, also  a  strong  Union  man,  took  the  office  of 
Secretary  of  War,  made  vacant  by  Floyd,  who  had 
added  official  dishonesty  to  treason. 

Stan  ton,  in  the  Attorney-General's  office,  was  a 
very  different  sort  of  man  from  Black,  who  had  re- 
tired to  Pennsylvania.  The  infamous  Jacob  Thomp- 
son, who  kept  his  office  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior 
for  the  purpose,  apparently,  of  helping  his  fellow- 
conspirators  in  the  slave  States,  advised  a  surrender 
of  the  forts  in  Charleston  Harbor  and  the  withdrawal 
of  Major  Anderson  and  his  little  force.  Stan  ton  said 
to  the  President: 

"Mr.  President,  it  is  my  duty,  as  your  legal  adviser,  to 
say  that  you  have  no  right  to  give  up  the  property  of  the 
Government,  or  abandon  the  soldiers  of  the  United  States 
to  its  enemies ;  and  the  course  proposed  by  the  Secretary 
of  the  Interior,  if  followed,  is  treason,  and  will  involve 
you,  and  all  concerned,  in  treason." 

For  the  first  time,  treason  had  been  called  by  its 
right  name  in  the  Cabinet  councils  of  James  Bu- 
chanan. It  was  none  too  soon.  The  traitors  now 
saw  that  their  work  in  Washington  must  close ;  the 
times  were  ripe  for  open  revolt;  and  while  some 
waited  until  the  open  secession  of  their  States  called 
them  home,  others  hastened  southwards,  eagerly 


214  Abraham  Lincoln 

taking  part  in  what  they  fondly  deemed  to  be  the 
formation  of  a  new  and  prosperous  confederacy. 
According  to  the  programme  of  the  secessionists, 
South  Carolina  led  off  in  the  formal  proceedings  of 
leave-taking.  That  State  had  long  been  the  home  of 
disunion,  and  there  was  a  certain  propriety  in  con- 
ceding to  it  the  leadership  of  the  new  movement.  The 
ordinance  of  secession  was  adopted  by  South  Caro- 
lina November  17,  1860.  Mississippi  followed  Janu- 
ary 9,  1861;  Florida,  January  loth;  Alabama, 
January  nth;  Georgia,  January  igth;  Louisiana, 
January  25th;  and  Texas,  February  ist.  So  that 
by  the  time  Lincoln  was  ready  to  go  to  Washington 
to  take  the  oath  of  office,  seven  States  had  declared 
themselves  out  of  the  Union.  They  did  not  at  once 
form  a  separate  confederacy,  but  each  State  de- 
clared itself  independent  of  the  union  of  the  States 
to  which  each  had  belonged.  Thus  in  South  Caro- 
lina, after  the  ordinance  of  secession  had  been  passed, 
declaring  that  the  union  then  subsisting  between 
South  Carolina  and  other  States  under  the  name  of 
the  United  States  of  America  was  dissolved,  Pickens, 
Governor  of  the  State,  issued  a  proclamation  de- 
claring South  Carolina  to  be  "a  free,  sovereign,  and 
independent  State."  This  action  filled  the  city  of 
Charleston,  the  headquarters  of  rebellion,  with  de- 
lirious joy  and  every  manifestation  of  delight. 
Popular  gatherings  of  every  description  and  private 
festivities  celebrated  the  event  to  which  the  people 
of  that  devoted  city  had  so  long  looked  forward  with 
eager  expectation.  Hatred  for  the  union  of  the 
States  was  evinced  in  every  possible  way,  the  Amer- 


After  the  Election  215 

ican  flag  being  covered  with  indignity  of  the  most 
childish  description.  At  one  of  the  secession  balls 
the  dancers  went  through  the  idle  ceremony  of 
dancing  on  the  flag,  spread  out  on  the  floor  of  the 
room. 

On  the  4th  of  February,  1861,  representatives  of 
the  seceding  States  assembled  in  Montgomery,  Ala- 
bama, formed  a  confederacy  of  States,  and  elected 
Jefferson  Davis,  of  Mississippi,  provisional  President, 
and  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  of  Georgia,  Vice-Presi- 
dent. This  is  the  same  Davis  who  was  engaged  in 
the  Black  Hawk  war  when  Lincoln  was,  being  then 
an  officer  of  the  United  States  army.  He  had  been 
educated  at  the  West  Point  Military  Academy  at 
the  expense  of  the  Republic.  The  machinery  of  the 
new  confederacy  was  now  set  up,  and,  by  appointing 
secretaries  for  the  different  executive  departments 
of  the  government,  Davis  took  the  first  step  in  the 
direction  of  putting  that  machinery  in  action. 

Lincoln,  at  Springfield,  lingering  in  his  home  until 
such  time  as  was  necessary  for  him  to  depart  for 
Washington,  beheld  all  these  revolutionary  proceed- 
ings with  profound  anxiety.  He  was  powerless  to 
lift  a  hand  against  the  traitors  who  were  seeking  the 
destruction  of  the  Federal  Union,  for,  although  he 
had  been  called  to  be  President  of  the  United  States, 
he  was  as  yet  a  private  citizen.  And  while  the  loyal 
people  of  the  Republic  longed  and  prayed  for  a  strong 
man  at  the  helm  of  the  National  Government,  and 
waited  for  the  fourth  of  March  to  come  and  see 
Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  chair  of  state,  he  remained 
passive,  counselling  patience  and  moderation  to  all 


216  Abraham  Lincoln 

with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  and  framing  in  his 
mind  the  pleading,  expostulating,  and  generous  in- 
augural address  that  he  subsequently  delivered. 
Jefferson  Davis,  on  the  other  hand,  gave  voice  to  the 
hatred  and  vindictiveness  of  the  slavery  leaders, 
when,  on  his  way  from  his  home  to  be  inaugurated 
in  Montgomery,  he  said:  "We  will  carry  the  war 
where  it  is  easy  to  advance,  where  food  for  the  sword 
and  the  torch  awaits  our  armies  in  the  densely 
populated  cities."  On  the  one  side  were  forbear- 
ance, magnanimity,  and  Christian  patience.  On  the 
other  side  were  hatred,  vaporing,  and  threats  of 
violence. 

But  it  should  not  be  hastily  assumed  that  all  the 
Southern  men  of  prominence  were  in  this  frame  of 
mind.  There  were  among  them  not  a  few  who  re- 
garded these  delirious  performances  with  inexpres- 
sible sadness,  and  who  looked  on  the  acts  of  secession 
as  supreme  folly.  Thus  Alexander  H.  Stephens, 
one  of  the  ablest  of  the  Southern  leaders,  endeavored 
to  dissuade  the  convention  of  his  State  from  passing 
the  ordinance  of  secession.  He  knew  Lincoln  well ; 
and  he  knew  his  generosity,  his  justness,  and  his 
ardent  patriotism.  Speaking  to  the  convention, 
Stephens  said:  "Pause,  I  entreat  you,  and  consider 
for  a  moment  what  reasons  you  can  give  that  will 
even  satisfy  you  in  your  calmer  moments — what 
reasons  you  can  give  to  your  fellow-sufferers  in  the 
calamity  that  it  will  bring  upon  us.  What  reasons 
can  you  give  to  the  nations  of  the  earth  to  justify 
it?"  And,  speaking  of  the  slave  property,  to  pre- 
serve which  the  South  proposed  to  invite  war,  he 


After  the  Election  217 

said  that  they  might  lose  all,  and  have  their  last 
slave  wrenched  from  them  by  stern  military  rule, 
"or  by  the  vindictive  decree  of  a  universal  emanci- 
pation, which  may  reasonably  be  expected  to  follow." 

Lincoln  had,  from  the  first,  believed  that  the  Gov- 
ernment could  not  exist  half  slave  and  half  free.  By 
the  act  of  rebellion  against  the  Union,  the  Southern 
States  were  inviting  war;  and  war,  as  their  future 
Vice-President  now  told  them,  might  reasonably  be 
expected  to  bring  universal  emancipation  of  the 
slaves.  Stephens  put  into  the  form  of  words  what 
Lincoln  had  seen  from  afar  was  possible.  Lincoln 
knew  that  in  the  shock  of  war  slavery  must  go  down ; 
but  he  resolutely  set  his  face  against  doing  any- 
thing that  should  hasten  the  day  of  emancipation 
except  by  such  means  as  he  believed  to  be  constitu- 
tional and  lawful.  He  determined  to  preserve,  if 
possible,  the  Union.  Slavery  must  take  care  of  it- 
self ;  he  would  not  touch  it.  The  South  rushed  upon 
its  doom. 

Meanwhile,  sundry  well-intentioned  men  were 
doing  what,  they  thought  best  to  counteract  the  wave 
of  hostility  that  had  begun  to  rise  in  the  North.  A 
steamer  chartered  by  the  government  to  take  pro- 
visions to  the  United  States  troops  shut  up  in 
Charleston  Harbor  had  been  fired  on  from  the  Rebel 
works  on  the  shore,  and  the  attitude  of  the  South 
was  gradually  growing  more  and  more  warlike.  This 
kindled  indignation  and  bitterness  in  the  Northern 
States.  A  peace  congress  assembled  in  Washington 
to  concert  measures  for  the  averting  of  war.  Union 
meetings  were  held  in  New  York  and  other  large 


218  Abraham  Lincoln 

cities  in  the  free  States,  everybody  being  desirous, 
apparently,  of  doing  whatever  could  reasonably  be 
done  to  pacify  the  South,  angry  at  the  election  of  a 
' '  sectional  candidate. ' '  The  Southerners  forgot  that 
they  had  made  freedom  sectional. 

It  should  be  said,  also,  that  in  communities  where 
the  trade  and  commerce  of  the  Southern  people  had 
been  large,  there  was  something  like  a  panic  at  the 
near  prospect  of  a  war  with  the  slave  States.  Cotton, 
that  great  staple  of  the  Gulf  States,  was  one  of  the 
great  needs  of  the  manufacturing  States  of  the  North. 
The  Southern  States  did  not  manufacture  many 
goods,  and  their  dependence  on  the  North  was  also 
one  reason  why  these  latter  should  not  go  to  war. 
They  would  lose  their  profitable  customers.  Thus 
the  desire  in  the  North  for  peace  was  natural  and 
strong. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

FROM   SPRINGFIELD   TO   WASHINGTON. 

Lincoln's  Farewell  to  His  Fellow-Townsmen — Prayers  for  the  Presi- 
dent-Elect— Rush  of  the  People  to  See  Him — A  Series  of  Remark- 
able Speeches — Why  the  President  Would  Wear  a  Beard — 
Rumors  of  Assassination  —  The  Night  Journey  from  Harrisburg 
to  the  Capital. 

ON  the  nth  of  February,  1861,  Lincoln,  accom- 
panied by  his  family  and  a  few  personal 
friends,  left  his  modest  and  happy  home  in  Spring- 
field for  the  national  capital.  No  man  can  know 
what  sad  forebodings,  what  thoughts  of  possible 
disaster  to  him,  to  his  country,  and  to  his  beloved 
family  may  have  oppressed  his  mind,  as  he  looked 
for  the  last  time  on  the  familiar  scenes  of  his  Illinois 
home.  Already  threats  of  assassination  had  been 
whispered  abroad,  and  it  had  been  boasted  by  the 
enemies  of  the  Union  that  Lincoln  would  never  reach 
Washington  alive.  And,  in  any  case,  the  certain 
approach  of  war  was  now  a  matter  weighing  on  every 
heart,  and  the  man  who  was  to  conduct  the  affairs  of 
the  nation,  under  God,  was  bowed  down  with  this 
great  anxiety  as  he  bade  farewell  to  his  fellow- 
townsmen.  As  if  conscious  that  this  was  indeed  a 
last  parting,  his  voice  trembled  and  his  eyes  were 
suffused  with  moisture  as  he  spoke  from  the  platform 

x    219 


220  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  the  railway  train  these  beautiful  words,  breathing 
a  spirit  of  Christian  trust  and  manly  affection  for  his 
friends  and  neighbors: 

"  My  friends,  no  one  not  in  my  situation  can  appreciate 
my  feelings  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To  this  place,  and 
the  kindness  of  these  people,  I  owe  everything.  Here  I 
have  lived  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  have  passed  from  a 
young  to  an  old  man.  Here  my  children  have  been  born, 
and  one  is  buried.  I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or 
whether  ever  I  may  return,  with  a  task  before  me  greater 
than  that  which  rested  upon  Washington.  Without  the 
assistance  of  that  Divine  Being  who  ever  attended  him,  I 
cannot  succeed.  With  that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail. 
Trusting  in  Him,  who  can  go  with  me,  and  remain  with 
you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let  us  confidently  hope 
that  all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care  commending  you, 
as  I  hope  in  your  prayers  you  will  commend  me,  I  bid  you 
an  affectionate  farewell." 

It  is  good  to  remember  that  this  last  request  of 
Lincoln  of  his  neighbors  and  townsmen  was  heeded. 
From  that  day  to  the  dark  hour  when  his  earthly  re- 
mains were  brought  back  to  be  laid  in  the  earth, 
from  innumerable  homes  went  up  the  daily  prayer 
for  the  President  of  the  United  States  in  his  sore 
need.  And  not  only  from  the  people  of  Illinois,  who 
loved  this  man  so  well,  but  from  every  nook  and 
corner  of  the  land  of  liberty  and  freedom,  were  the 
petitions  of  faithful  Christian  men  and  women 
offered  continually  for  him,  for  his  counsellors,  and 
all  others  in  authority. 

Passing  from  Illinois,  on  his  way  to  the  national 


From  Springfield  to  Washington       221 

capital,  Lincoln  traversed  the  States  of  Indiana, 
Ohio,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and 
Maryland.  Enthusiasm  and  curiosity  combined  to 
draw  prodigious  crowds  to  the  stations  through 
which  Lincoln's  train  passed,  or  stopped.  The 
outpouring  of  the  people  was  something  unprece- 
dented. The  crowds  continually  called  for  a  speech. 
They  could  not  understand  why  Lincoln,  the  master 
orator  of  the  West,  should  not  make  haste  to  reply 
to  their  demand  for  a  speech.  He  was  reluctant  to 
break  his  rule  not  to  outline  any  part  of  his  future 
policy.  But  the  burning  questions  of  the  hour 
would  not  be  evaded ;  and,  if  he  spoke  at  all,  he  must 
needs  touch  on  some  of  these.  At  Indianapolis, 
where  he  was  greeted  with  great  acclamation,  and 
was  escorted  to  his  hotel  by  a  procession  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  he  broke  his  rule, 
and  said  a  few  words  about  "invasion"  and  "coer- 
cion." At  that  time  these  phrases  were  on  every 
man's  lips.  The  South  and  its  friends  in  the  North 
were  very  much  exercised  at  the  suggestion  that  the 
North,  that  is  to  say,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  would  "invade"  the  States  that  had  seceded, 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  the  authority  of  the 
United  States.  It  had  been  expressly  declared  by 
those  who  were  President  Buchanan's  legal  advisers 
that  it  was  neither  lawful,  nor  constitutional,  nor 
possible,  for  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
to  "coerce"  any  State  that  chose  to  leave  the 
Union.  The  professed  friends  of  peace  and  union 
rang  the  changes  on  these  two  words.  Coercion,  they 
said,  was  wrong,  and  the  invasion  of  a  State  was 


222  Abraham  Lincoln 

unconstitutional  and  wicked,  even  treasonable.   Lin- 
coln said: 

"What,  then,  is  'coercion'?  What  is  'invasion'? 
Would  the  marching  of  an  army  into  South  Carolina, 
without  the  consent  of  her  people,  and  with  hostile  intent 
toward  them,  be  invasion?  I  certainly  think  it  would, 
and  it  would  be  coercion  also  if  the  South  Carolinians  were 
forced  to  submit.  But  if  the  United  States  should  merely 
hold  and  retake  its  own  forts  and  other  property,  and 
collect  the  duties  on  foreign  importations,  or  even  with- 
hold the  mails  from  places  where  they  were  habitually 
violated,  would  any  or  all  of  these  things  be  invasion  or 
coercion?  .  .  .  Upon  what  principle,  what  rightful 
principle,  may  a  State,  being  no  more  than  one-fiftieth 
part  of  the  nation  in  soil  and  population,  break  up  the 
nation,  and  then  coerce  a  proportionably  larger  sub- 
division of  itself  in  the  same  way?" 

It  will  be  noticed  that  Lincoln  asserted  nothing. 
He  asked  these  questions  and  left  them  for  the  people 
to  think  about.  This  was  one  of  his  favorite  methods 
of  putting  a  case.  He  made  no  arrogant  assertions, 
no  ' '  thus-saith-the-Lord "  declarations.  He  pre- 
ferred, whenever  that  was  possible,  to  leave  the  case 
with  the  people  to  decide  for  themselves,  having 
first  cleared  the  ground  by  asking  a  few  weighty 
questions.  At  other  points,  Lincoln  was  called  upon 
to  address  the  throngs  that  pressed  to  see  him,  to 
hear  his  voice.  It  was  contrary  to  his  nature  to  dis- 
appoint them ;  and,  although  he  made  no  more  re- 
marks like  those  at  Indianapolis  to  indicate  what  his 
public  policy  might  be,  he  responded  whenever  the 


From  Springfield  to  Washington       223 

time  allowed  him.  Thus  at  Lawrenceburgh,  Indiana, 
he  said,  in  the  course  of  a  very  brief  speech : 

"  Let  me  tell  you  that  if  the  people  remain  right,  your 
public  men  can  never  betray  you.  If,  in  my  brief  term 
of  office,  I  shall  be  wicked  or  foolish,  if  you  remain  right 
and  true  and  honest,  you  cannot  be  betrayed.  My 
power  is  temporary  and  fleeting;  yours  as  eternal  as  the 
principles  of  liberty." 

At  Cincinnati,  the  great  city  of  Ohio,  the  populace 
went  wild  with  enthusiasm.  Nothing  like  it  had 
ever  before  been  seen  in  the  beautiful  and  easily- 
moved  "Queen  City  of  the  West,"  as  its  people  are 
proud  to  call  their  home.  Lincoln  was  almost  bodily 
carried  to  his  hotel,  so  vast  was  the  pressure  of  the 
wave  of  people  that  surged  in  volumes  through  the 
gayly  decorated  streets.  At  night  the  buildings  were 
illuminated,  and  the  city  wore  a  festal  appearance 
while  the  party  tarried.  Lincoln  made  a  little  speech 
full  of  good  feeling;  and,  as  he  was  now  on  the 
borders  of  Kentucky,  a  slave  State,  in  which  were 
not  a  few  who  longed  to  take  the  State  out  of  the 
Union,  he  addressed  himself  to  Kentuckians,  his  old- 
time  friends,  with  peculiar  warmth  and  tenderness. 
Referring  to  the  words  that  he  had  used  when 
speaking  to  the  South  aforetime,  he  said:  "Fellow- 
citizens  of  Kentucky — may  I  call  you  such  ?  In  my 
new  position  I  see  no  occasion,  and  I  feel  no  inclina- 
tion, to  retract  a  word  of  this.  If  it  shall  not  be 
made  good,  be  assured  that  the  fault  will  not  be 
mine."  In  this  way,  making  an  enthusiastic  pro- 
gress, but  constantly  pleading  for  peace,  good-will, 


224  Abraham  Lincoln 

forbearance,  and  patriotic  concessions  to  the  right- 
eousness of  the  cause  of  liberty,  Lincoln  approached 
the  scene  of  his  future  labors. 

At  every  point  where  he  could  be  induced  to  stop, 
even  for  an  hour  or  two,  the  greetings  of  affection 
and  respect  were  unmistakable,  and  it  is  likely  that 
Lincoln  was  glad  of  this  opportunity  to  show  him- 
self to  the  people,  and  to  speak  reassuring  words.  It 
is  more  than  likely  that,  averse  as  he  was  to  display, 
he  would  have  hurried  on  to  Washington,  but  for 
the  fact,  more  clear  in  his  mind  than  in  the  minds  of 
others,  that  this  was  his  last  opportunity  to  say  a 
few  words  to  ''the  plain  people,"  on  whom  he  relied 
so  thoroughly,  and  in  whose  patriotism  he  confided 
so  much.  Thus  at  Pittsburg  he  said  he  was  gratified 
deeply  by  the  information  that  the  magnificent  recep- 
tion tendered  him  was  by  citizens  generally,  without 
distinction  of  party.  And  he  added:  "If  we  don't 
all  join  now  to  save  the  good  old  ship  of  the  Union, 
this  voyage,  nobody  will  have  a  chance  to  pilot  her 
on  another  voyage."  It  is  very  likely,  by  the  way, 
that  Lincoln  had  in  his  mind  at  that  time  the  stanza 
of  Longfellow's  Building  of  the  Ship,  which,  later  in 
the  course  of  his  life,  he  was  fond  of  reciting: 

"Thou,  too,  sail  on,  O  Ship  of  State! 
Sail  on,  O  Union,  strong  and  great! 
Humanity  with  all  its  fears, 
With  all  the  hopes  of  future  years, 
Is  hanging  breathless  on  thy  fate!" 

An  entertaining  incident  occurred  at  North  East 
station,  a  minor  point  between  Erie,  Pennsylvania, 


From  Springfield  to  Washington       225 

and  Buffalo,  New  York.  Up  to  the  time  of  his  nomi- 
nation for  the  Presidency,  Lincoln's  face  was  clean- 
shaven. As  his  neck  was  long  and  his  cheeks  rather 
hollow  and  dusky,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  advice 
given  him  by  an  unknown  admirer  during  the  cam- 
paign was  very  good.  A  young  girl,  writing  from  this 
same  North  East  station,  counselled  him,  in  a  simple 
little  letter,  that  if  he  would  let  his  whiskers  grow, 
he  would  look  very  much  better.  Lincoln  followed 
her  advice,  after  consulting  his  wife ;  and  bearing  in 
mind  the  name  of  the  place  whence  the  writer  had 
advised  him,  he  now  asked  that  a  little  stop  might  be 
made  there.  In  response  to  the  tumultuous  greeting 
of  the  assembled  crowds,  he  said,  after  a  few  words, 
that  he  had  received  a  letter  from  a  fair  young  towns- 
woman  of  theirs,  who,  among  other  things,  had  ad- 
monished him  to  raise  whiskers,  and  that  he  had,  as 
they  would  see,  followed  her  counsel.  If  she  were  in 
the  assemblage  before  him,  he  would  be  glad  to  wel- 
come her.  In  answer  to  this  unexpected  request,  a 
blushing  little  damsel  made  her  way  to  the  Presi- 
dent, was  assisted  to  the  platform  of  the  railway-car, 
and  kissed  by  the  President-elect,  to  the  great  delight 
of  the  crowd,  who  cheered  heartily  as  Lincoln  and 
his  young  correspondent  met  for  the  first  and  last 
time. 

At  Albany,  the  capital  of  the  great  State  of  New 
York,  he  was  met  by  the  usual  vast  crowds,  and  he 
had  accepted  the  invitation  of  the  State,  tendered 
him  by  the  Governor,  Hon.  E.  D.  Morgan,  afterwards 
known  as  the  redoubtable,  generous,  and  patriotic 
"War  Governor"  of  the  Empire  State.  Lincoln's 


226  Abraham  Lincoln 

speech  at  this  point,  delivered  in  the  statehouse, 
was  characterized  by  a  beautiful  simplicity  and 
diffidence.  He  said  that  he  was  awed  by  the  influ- 
ences of  the  place  in  which  he  spoke,  associated  as  it 
was  in  his  mind  with  some  of  the  great  men  of  the 
nation,  and  he  was  disposed  to  shrink  from  address- 
ing the  audience.  Then  he  added:  "It  is  true  that, 
while  I  hold  myself,  without  mock-modesty,  the 
humblest  of  all  the  individuals  who  have  ever  been 
elected  President  of  the  United  States,  I  yet  have  a 
more  difficult  task  to  perform  than  any  one  of  them 
has  encountered."  Then,  alluding  to  the  prevailing 
anxiety  to  hear  some  exposition  of  his  future  policy, 
he  said :  "I  deem  it  just  to  the  country,  to  myself,  to 
you,  that  I  should  see  everything,  hear  everything, 
and  have  every  light  that  can  possibly  be  brought 
within  my  reach,  to  aid  me  before  I  shall  speak 
officially,  in  order  that  when  I  do  speak,  I  may  have 
the  best  means  of  taking  true  and  correct  grounds." 
This  was  always,  to  the  last  of  his  life,  Lincoln's  way. 
He  would  do  nothing  in  a  hurry. 

He  was  given,  as  might  be  expected,  a  wonderfully 
fine  reception  in  the  great  metropolis  of  New  York. 
Under  very  different  circumstances  from  those  of  his 
last  visit  did  he  now  return  to  the  chief  city  of  the 
Republic.  Then  he  was  comparatively  a  stranger; 
his  address  at  Cooper  Union  had  been  his  first  intro- 
duction to  the  people  of  the  Eastern  States.  Now 
he  came  as  the  elected  choice  of  the  nation,  chief 
magistrate  of  the  Republic.  At  that  time,  Fernando 
Wood,  who  was  for  a  time  in  favor  of  making  New 
York  a  free  and  independent  city  of  the  Republic, 


From  Springfield  to  Washington        227 

like  Antwerp  and  others,  .was  mayor,  and  in  his 
official  capacity  he  received  the  President-elect. 
Mr.  Wood  dwelt  with  some  emphasis  on  the  fact  that 
New  York  was  the  chief  port,  as  well  as  the  chief  city, 
of  the  United  States,  and  that  it  was  greatly  con- 
cerned that  there  should  be  peace  always;  he  said 
that  war  would  be  destructive  of  its  highest  interests. 
In  his  response,  Lincoln  said,  with  his  usual  shrewd- 
ness and  wisdom,  after  renewing  his  expressions  of 
devotion  to  the  Union,  that  the  whole  country,  as 
well  as  the  great  city  of  New  York,  was  concerned 
in  the  preservation  of  the  Union  under  which  all  the 
States  had  acquired  their  due  measure  of  greatness. 
And  he  added : 

"  I  understand  the  ship  to  be  made  for  the  carrying  and 
the  preservation  of  the  cargo,  and  so  long'as  the  ship  can 
be  saved  with  the  cargo,  it  should  never  be  abandoned, 
unless  there  appears  to  be  no  possibility  of  its  preserva- 
tion, and  it  must  cease  to  exist,  except  at  the  risk  of 
throwing  overboard  both  freight  and  passengers.  So 
long,  then,  as  it  is  possible  that  the  prosperity  and  the 
liberties  of  the  people  be  preserved  in  this  Union,  it  shall 
be  my  purpose  at  all  times  to  use  all  my  powers  to  aid  in 
its  perpetuation." 

Earlier  in  this  story,  we  have  seen  how  Lincoln 
dwelt  on  his  study  of  the  character  of  Washington, 
as  it  was  drawn  in  the  first  book  which,  as  the  poor 
boy  of  the  backwoods,  was  his  first  literary  possession 
— Weems's  Life  of  Washington.  At  Trenton,  New 
Jersey,  where  he  was  in  sight  of  some  of  the  most 
famous  battle-fields  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  Lin- 
coln recalled  to  the  minds  of  the  people  before  him 


228  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  fact  that  very  few  of  the  States  among  the  old 
thirteen  original  States  had  more  battle-fields  within 
their  limits  than  New  Jersey.  And  he  added: 

"  May  I  be  pardoned  if  upon  this  occasion  I  mention 
that,  away  back  in  my  childhood,  the  earliest  days  of  my 
being  able  to  read,  I  got  hold  of  a  small  book,  such  a  one  as 
few  of  these  younger  members  have  ever  seen,  Weems's 
Life  of  Washington.  I  remember  all  the  accounts  there 
given  of  the  battle-fields  and  struggles  for  the  liberties  of 
the  country,  and  none  fixed  themselves  upon  my  imagina- 
tion so  deeply  as  the  struggle  here  at  Trenton,  New  Jersey. 
The  crossing  of  the  river,  the  contest  with  the  Hessians, 
the  great  hardships  endured  at  that  time, — all  fixed  them- 
selves on  my  memory  more  than  any  single  Revolutionary 
event ;  and  you  know,  for  you  have  all  been  boys,  how 
these  early  impressions  last  longer  than  any  others.  I 
recollect  thinking  then,  boy  even  though  I  was,  that  there 
must  have  been  more  than  common  that  those  men  strug- 
gled for.  I  am  exceedingly  anxious  that  that  thing  they 
struggled  for,  that  something  even  more  than  national  in- 
dependence, that  something  that  held  out  a  great  promise 
to  all  the  people  of  the  world  to  all  time  to  come — I  am  ex- 
ceedingly anxious  that  this  Union,  the  Constitution,  and 
the  liberties  of  the  people,  shall  be  perpetuated  in  accord- 
ance with  the  original  idea  for  which  the  struggle  was 
made;  and  I  shall  be  most  happy  indeed  if  I  shall  be 
an  humble  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Almighty,  and 
of  this  His  almost  chosen  people,  for  perpetuating  the 
object  of  that  great  struggle." 

The  poor  boy,  grown  to  man's  estate,  undoubtedly 
recalled  to  mind,  as  he  spoke  to  the  Legislature  and 
the  people  of  New  Jersey,  some  of  the  trials  and 


From  Springfield  to  Washington       229 

boyish  griefs  of  the  time  when,  with  the  rain-stained 
book  of  Weems  in  his  hand,  he  went  sorrowfully  to 
ask  its  surly  owner  what  was  to  be  done  to  meet  this 
irreparable  disaster;  and  Lincoln,  President-elect, 
had  carried  all  through  life  what  was  better  than  the 
lesson  of  that  dark,  childish  trouble — the  lesson  of 
the  lives  of  the  patriot  fathers  of  the  Republic. 

There  had  been  vague  rumors  and  suspicions  afloat 
concerning  a  conspiracy  to  assassinate  the  President- 
elect while  he  should  be  on  his  way  to  Washington. 
Lincoln  himself  paid  very  little  heed  to  these  rumors. 
It  was  always  difficult  for  him  to  place  upon  his  own 
person  the  value  and  importance  of  the  office  he 
held.  Even  later,  when  he  had  been  in  his  exalted 
position  for  years,  he  seemed  incapable  of  realizing 
that  he  was,  in  his  own  proper  person,  a  man  of 
great  importance  to  the  people.  But,  as  the  party 
drew  near  the  seat  of  government,  which  was  almost, 
in  point  of  fact,  within  the  Rebel  lines,  with  the  re- 
bellious State  of  Virginia  on  the  south  and  the 
turbulent  and  disloyal  State  of  Maryland  on  the 
north,  the  whispers  of  conspiracy  and  plot  became 
more  and  more  articulate.  The  nest  of  the  conspir- 
acy seemed  to  be  in  Baltimore,  and  all  indications 
pointed  directly  to  that  city  of  slaveholders  and  un- 
disguised sympathizers  with  rebellion.  The  Union 
element  in  Baltimore,  which  asserted  itself  after- 
wards, was  cowed  and  silenced  by  the  more  noisy 
and  riotous  portion  of  the  population.  To  all  in- 
tents, the  city  was  a  hotbed  of  rebellion. 

Personal  friends  employed  detectives  to  follow  up 
the  slight  clews  which  were  given  them,  and  it  was 


230  Abraham  Lincoln 

absolutely  settled  that  there  was  a  plot  to  assassinate 
Lincoln  as  he  passed  through  Baltimore.  This  in- 
formation, with  evidence  establishing  it  beyond  a 
doubt,  was  laid  before  Lincoln  on  his  arrival  in 
Philadelphia.  At  the  same  time,  Gen.  Winfield 
Scott,  then  commanding  the  army  of  the  United 
States,  and  residing  in  Washington,  was  by  his 
secret  agents  apprised  of  the  existence  of  the 
plot  aforementioned.  Here  were  two  independent 
sources  of  information,  and,  in  conjunction  with 
Senator  Seward,  of  New  York,  a  trusty  messenger, 
Mr.  Frederick  W.  Seward,  was  sent  to  Philadelphia, 
by  Gen.  Scott  and  Mr.  Seward,  to  warn  Lincoln,  and 
to  urge  him  to  take  every  precaution  to  avoid  danger 
on  his  way  to  Washington.  Lincoln  was  very  much 
disturbed  by  these  two  confirmatory  reports.  He 
was  still  unwilling  to  believe  that  any  attempt  would 
be  made  to  waylay  and  murder  him;  and  he  could 
not  persuade  himself  that  any  one  so  base  and 
wicked  as  to  take  his  life  causelessly  could  be  found. 
He  had  agreed  to  meet  the  citizens  of  Philadelphia  at 
Independence  Hall,  where  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was  written  and  signed,  and  to  raise  a  flag 
over  that  historic  building  on  Washington's  birth- 
day, February  226..  He  had  also  accepted  an  invi- 
tation to  meet  the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania,  at 
Harrisburg,  the  State  capital,  on  the  afternoon  of 
that  day.  To  all  expostulations  and  advice,  the 
President-elect  said:  "Both  of  these  appointments  I 
shall  keep,  if  it  costs  me  my  life."  The  flag-raising 
took  place  as  previously  arranged.  Lincoln  was 
formally  presented  to  a  great  company  of  people, 


From  Springfield  to  Washington       231 

gathered  from  far  and  wide, — among  them  doubtless 
being  some  of  the  men  who  were  concerned  in  the 
assassination  plot.  With  cheerfulness  and  dignity, 
Lincoln  made  an  admirable  address.  Standing  in 
the  room  where  the  immortal  Declaration  was 
signed,  weighed  down  with  contending  emotions, 
not  the  least  oppressive  of  which,  we  may  be  sure, 
was  that  inspired  by  his  patriotic  advocacy  of  the 
principle  laid  down  in  that  famous  Declaration, 
Lincoln  again  pleaded  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
doctrines  of  universal  liberty.  It  was  this,  he  said, 
that  gave  promise  th^t  in  due  time  the  weight  should 
be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men.  And  he 
added :  "If  this  c mntry  cannot  be  saved  without 
giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to  say  I  would 
rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot  than  surrender 
it."  Only  those  few  who  knew  at  that  time  of  the 
wicked  plot  against  his  life,  noticed  the  allusion  to 
what  was  evidently  in  Lincoln's  mind — the  danger 
of  assassination  that  then  menaced  him. 

Passing  out  upon  a  platform  that  had  been  built 
in  front  of  Independence  Hall,  Lincoln  took  hold  of 
the  halyards  and  ran  to  the  top  of  the  flag-staff  the 
beautiful  banner  of  stars  and  stripes  that  had  been 
prepared  for  this  special  occasion.  Amid  the  cheers 
of  the  vast  multitude,  the  national  ensign,  now  an 
object  of  hatred  and  contempt  in  so  many  States  of 
the  Union,  floated  brilliantly  from  the  mast-head, 
raised  by  the  willing  hands  of  the  man  who,  of  all 
others  in  the  Republic,  had  been  most  faithful  to  the 
principles  and  sentiments  of  the  Declaration  pro- 
claimed from  this  sacred  spot. 


232  Abraham  Lincoln 

Later  in  the  day,  when  Lincoln  addressed  the  as- 
sembled Legislature  of  the  State,  in  Harrisburg,  he 
said,  speaking  of  the  flag-raising: 

"  Our  friends  there  had  provided  a  magnificent  flag  of 
the  country.  They  had  arranged  it  so  that  I  was  given 
the  honor  of  raising  it  to  the  head  of  its  staff.  And  when 
it  went  up  I  was  pleased  that  it  went  to  its  place  by  the 
strength  of  my  own  feeble  arm.  When,  according  to  the 
arrangement,  the  cord  was  pulled,  and  it  flaunted  glori- 
ously to  the  wind  without  an  accident,  in  the  bright 
glowing  sunshine  of  the  morning,  I  could  not  help  hop- 
ing that  there  was  in  the  entire  success  of  that  beautiful 
ceremony  at  least  something  of  an  omen  of  what  is  to 
come.  Nor  could  I  help  feeling  then,  as  I  often  have  felt, 
that  in  the  whole  of  that  proceeding  I  was  a  very  humble 
instrument.  I  had  not  provided  the  flag ;  I  had  not  made 
the  arrangements  for  elevating  it  to  its  place.  I  had  ap- 
plied but  a  very  small  portion  of  my  feeble  strength  in 
raising  it.  In  the  whole  transaction  I  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  people  who  had  arranged  it;  and  if  I  can  have  the 
same  generous  cooperation  of  the  people  of  the  nation,  I 
think  the  flag  of  our  country  may  yet  be  kept  flaunting 
gloriously." 

When  Lincoln  had  been  welcomed  to  Harrisburg, 
on  his  arrival,  the  Speaker  had  uttered  some  words, 
rather  unadvisedly  perhaps,  as  to  the  military  sup- 
port that  Pennsylvania  would  give  the  imperilled 
Union  in  case  of  need.  Right  royally  did  the  State 
fulfil  that  implied  promise;  but  Lincoln  deprecated 
any  reference  to  the  possibility,  much  more  to  the 
probability,  that  we  should  have  a  war  with  the 


From  Springfield  to  Washington        233 

South.     And  in  his  speech  at  the  State  capitol  he 
said: 

"  I  recur  for  a  moment  to  some  words  uttered  at  the 
hotel  in  regard  to  what  has  been  said  about  the  military 
support  which  the  General  Government  may  expect  from 
the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania  in  a  proper  emergency. 
To  guard  against  any  possible  mistake  do  I  recur  to  this. 
It  is  not  with  any  pleasure  that  I  contemplate  the  pos- 
sibility that  a  necessity  may  arise  in  this  country  for  the 
use  of  the  military  arm.  While  I  am  exceedingly  gratified 
to  see  the  manifestation  upon  your  streets  of  your  military 
force  here,  and  exceedingly  gratified  at  your  promise  here 
to  use  that  force  upon  a  proper  emergency  —  while  I  make 
these  acknowledgments,  I  desire  to  repeat,  in  order  to 
preclude  any  possible  misconstruction,  that  I  do  most 
sincerely  hope  that  we  shall  have  no  use  for  them ;  that  it 
will  never  become  their  duty  to  shed  blood,  and  most 
especially  never  to  shed  fraternal  blood.  I  promise  that, 
so  far  as  I  may  have  wisdom  to  direct,  if  so  painful  a 
result  shall  in  any  wise  be  brought  about,  it  shall  be 
through  no  fault  of  mine." 

The  general  expectation  was  that  Lincoln,  with  the 
party  that  had  come  on  from  the  West  with  him, 
should  take  a  late  train  that  night  for  Washing- 
ton, passing  through  Baltimore.  In  order  to  frus- 
trate the  plans  of  the  conspirators,  it  was  privately 
arranged  that  he  should  take  an  earlier  train  and 
depart  from  Harrisburg  without  the  usual  public 
announcement  being  given  by  telegraph.  Accord- 
ingly, the  telegraph  wires  were  cut  in  every  direc- 
tion. Harrisburg  was  isolated  from  the  rest  of  the 
country,  so  far  as  this  means  of  communication  was 


234  Abraham  Lincoln 

concerned,  and  Lincoln,  accompanied  by  two  of 
three  devoted  personal  friends,  took  a  special  train 
to  Philadelphia,  drove  at  once  to  the  railway  station, 
found  ready  the  Washington  train,  and  so  passed 
through  Baltimore  hours  before  he  was  expected  to 
arrive  there.  There  have  been  many  absurd  stories 
circulated  since  then  as  to  Lincoln  being  compelled 
to  assume  a  disguise  for  this  dangerous  part  of  the 
journey.  It  is  sufficiently  disgraceful  to  the  Republic 
of  the  United  States  that  its  lawfully  elected  chief 
magistrate  should  have  been  put  in  danger  of  his  life 
when  proceeding  from  his  home  to  the  seat  of  govern- 
ment. But  the  tales  of  a  masquerading  disguise, 
donned  for  this  occasion,  were  invented,  for  the  most 
part,  by  those  who  secretly  sympathized  with  the 
would-be  assassins.  Unfortunately,  some  of  these 
idle  tales  have  survived,  to  be  repeated  by  careless 
writers. 

Speaking  of  this  sad  episode  long  afterwards,  Lin- 
coln said:  "I" did  not  then,  nor  do  I  now,  believe  I 
should  have  been  assassinated  had  I  gone  through 
Baltimore  as  first  contemplated,  but  I  thought  it 
wise  to  run  no  risk  where  no  risk  was  necessary." 
Washington  was  surprised  to  wake  up  early  on  the 
morning  of  February  23,  1861,  to  find  that  the 
President-elect,  so  soon  to  be  President  in  fact,  had 
arrived  safely.  His  family  came  on  soon  after  him, 
and  the  party  were  installed  at  temporary  quarters 
in  a  hotel,  pending  his  formal  inauguration  into  the 
great  office  to  which  he  had  been  chosen.  Washing- 
ton was  intensely  secession  in  its  social  sympathies. 
It  had  been  dominated  for  years  by  the  Southern 


From  Springfield  to  Washington        235 

and  slaveholding  element.  The  leaders  of  society 
hated  the  "Black  Republicans"  and  all  connected 
with  them.  They  were  glad  that  a  war  for  slavery 
was  coming,  and  they  showed  their  disloyalty  to 
the  Union  by  every  possible  means,  serious  or  silly. 
The  Rebels  had  adopted  Dixie  as  a  "national"  air 
for  the  new  confederacy,  and  this  and  other  alleged 
Rebel  tunes  poured  from  the  windows  of  the  houses 
of  the  Rebel-sympathizers,  day  and  night,  until  some 
of  the  regiments  that  occupied  Washington  later  in 
the  year  took  up  the  so-called  Rebel  strains  and 
made  them  too  common  to  be  regarded  any  longer  as 
exclusively  Rebel  property.  These  envenomed  and 
irritated  people  were  at  a  loss  for  slanders  vile  enough 
and  epithets  unsavory  enough  to  express  their  de- 
testation of  Lincoln  and  all  that  appertained  to  him. 
To  this  day,  undoubtedly,  many  honest  and  worthy 
people  entertain  false  notions  of  Lincoln,  his  family, 
his  antecedents,  and  his  conduct  in  office,  derived 
from  the  malicious  gossip  of  those  who  hoped,  for 
a  time,  that  he  would  be  sent  back  to  Illinois  dead 
or  alive,  and  that  "President  Davis"  would  come 
and  take  his  place.  All  this  was  of  short  duration. 
The  truth  of  history  sooner  or  later  is  vindicated. 
But  it  is  worth  while  to  put  on  record,  as  a  faithful 
chronicle  of  the  time,  the  fact  that  no  man  was  more 
thoroughly  misunderstood  or  more  bitterly  maligned 
than  was  Abraham  Lincoln  when,  on  the  brink  of 
civil  war,  he  took  up  the  reins  of  government. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 
LINCOLN'S  INAUGURATION. 

A  Notable  Gathering  in  Washington — The  First  Inaugural  Address 
— How  it  was  Received  North  and  South — Precautions  against 
Plots — Formation  of  the  Cabinet — Representative  Men. 

IT  was  a  notable  gathering  of  men  that  was  assem- 
bled about  Lincoln  when  he  was  inaugurated 
President  of  the  United  States,  March  4,  1861. 
Among  these  were  many  whose  names  will  always 
hold  place  in  the  history  of  our  country.  James 
Buchanan,  the  weak  and  irresolute,  was  just  relin- 
quishing the  reins  of  government  to  the  new  man 
"from  the  West."  Taney,  Chief  Justice  of  the 
United  States,  whose  name  is  forever  linked  with  the 
Dred  Scott  decision,  administered  the  oath  of  office 
to  the  incoming  President.  W.  H.  Seward,  formerly 
Governor  of  and  then  Senator  from  New  York,  soon 
to  be  Secretary  of  State,  was  there.  Senators  Sum- 
ner  and  Wilson,  of  Massachusetts,  early  Free-Soilers, 
and  each  destined  to  occupy  prominent  places  in 
the  management  of  public  affairs,  were  also  there. 
Senator  "Ben"  Wade,  of  Ohio,  another  Free-Soil 
leader;  General  Scott,  the  great  military  leader  of 
the  time;  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  Lincoln's  old  rival; 
Edward  D.  Baker,  Lincoln's  friend  and  dearly- 
beloved  companion,  and  many  more  who  were 

236 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  237 

either  famous  then  or  subsequently  became  so, — 
these  all  formed  a  group  of  historic  interest.  The 
ceremony  of  inauguration  took  place  on  a  platform 
constructed  at  the  east  front  of  the  Capitol,  then  not 
fully  finished,  overlooking  a  large  and  open  esplanade, 
at  the  outer  verge  of  which  a  marble  statue  of  Wash- 
ington shone  whitely  in  the  brilliant  sunshine. 
Curiosity  to  see  the  face  of  the  new  President,  and 
anxiety  to  hear  what  he  might  say,  had  drawn  enor- 
mous crowds  to  the  national  capital.  The  pressure 
of  people  was  something  unprecedented,  even  in 
Washington,  where  the  inauguration  of  an  adminis- 
tration had  always  been  a  great  event,  once  in  four 
years.  The  multitudes  of  office-hunters  doubtless 
added  greatly  to  the  press  of  people.  The  major 
portion  of  the  crowd  that  thronged  the  capital  was 
made  up  of  people  who  were  profoundly  impressed 
with  a  sense  of  the  gravity  of  the  occasion,  the 
solemnity  of  the  crisis  through  which  the  nation  was 
now  about  to  pass.  Treason  lurked  in  every  quarter. 
Not  only  were  the  departments  of  the  Government 
and  the  halls  of  Congress  poisoned  by  the  presence  of 
open  or  secret  Rebels,  but  many  officers  of  the  army 
and  navy  were  ready  to  serve  in  the  ranks  of  the 
seceders.  Some  of  these  had  already  accepted  ap- 
pointments and  commissions  from  the  so-called 
"Confederate  States  of  America,"  while  they  were 
yet  in  the  service  of  the  Republic.  Men  distrusted 
each  other.  Spies  were  known  to  be  about,  and  sus- 
picions of  a  plot  to  assassinate  the  President-elect 
were  rife.  Even  while  the  eager  throngs  surged 
about  the  platform,  high  above  their  heads,  on  which 


238  Abraham  Lincoln 

Lincoln  stood  with  his  friends  around  him,  many  a 
man  half -expected  that  he  might  hear  a  gunshot,  or 
see  a  sudden  rush  of  conspirators  from  the  marble 
colonnades  that  formed  the  picturesque  back- 
ground of  the  scene.  Doubtless,  much  of  this  ap- 
prehension was  not  well-founded.  It  is  the  unknown 
that  is  most  dreaded.  So  many  stories,  more  or  less 
exaggerated,  had  been  put  into  circulation  concern- 
ing the  plans  of  the  conspirators,  their  possible  plots 
and  desperate  hatred,  that  a  suspense,  most  painful 
and  tense,  pervaded  the  people.  All  over  the  coun- 
try, on  that  famous  day,  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
patriotic  citizens  waited  with  almost  suspended 
breath,  to  hear  portentous  news  from  Washington. 

In  the  midst  of  that  vast  concourse  Lincoln  stood, 
calm,  dignified,  self-possessed,  undaunted,  and  un- 
shrinking. The  fateful  hour  had  come.  He  stood 
on  the  threshold  of  the  high  office  which  he  was  never 
to  surrender  but  with  his  life.  His  mind  was  more 
occupied  with  the  grave  events  slowly  unfolding  in 
the  history  of  his  country  than  with  anything  per- 
sonal to  himself.  He  was  about  to  outline  and  define 
his  future  policy,  to  give  formal  expression  to  his 
feelings  and  sentiments,  to  indicate,  as  far  as  this  was 
possible  in  an  inaugural  address,  what  course  he 
would  pursue  to  the  States  that  had  declared  them- 
selves outside  of  the  American  Union.  Many  people, 
ardent  friends  and  followers  of  Lincoln,  were  even 
then  afraid  that  he  would  take  what  they  called  a 
"radical"  view  of  the  situation,  and  would  say  some- 
thing to  anger  and  exasperate  the  sullen  and  hostile 
Rebels.  They  were  needlessly  alarmed.  Lincoln's 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  239 

oration  was  a  model  of  a  generous,  pleading,  kindly, 
and  withal  reasoning  address.  His  arguments  were 
more  implied  than  assertive,  put  in  his  favorite 
form  of  questions,  rather  than  in  declarations. 
Clearly,  he  hoped,  as  many  others  then  did,  that 
reason  and  persuasiveness  might  yet  be  brought  to 
bear  upon  the  masses  of  the  Southern  people  so  that 
they  would  forsake  their  wilful  leaders,  or  brush 
them  aside  and  declare  for  the  Union.  To  reach 
these,  through  their  judgment  and  their  patriotism, 
was  the  main  purpose  of  Lincoln's  inaugural  ad- 
dress. This  was  a  disappointment  to  the  Southern 
leaders,  and  great  pains  were  taken  to  suppress  or 
distort  some  portions  of  the  oration  when  it  was 
subsequently  printed  in  the  South. 

Lincoln  took  occasion,  early  in  this  address,  to  re- 
assure the  Southern  people  of  his  intention  to  let 
slavery  alone  where  it  then  existed.  It  had  been 
said  that  the  accession  to  the  Presidency  of  a  man 
who  had  been  nominated  by  the  Republicans  was, 
in  itself,  a  threat  against  slavery;  that  he  would 
urge  legislation  to  abolish  domestic  servitude,  and 
would  instantly  begin  his  administration  with 
measures  designed  to  encourage  slave  insurrections 
and  a  general  unsettlement  of  Southern  institutions. 
To  dispel  this  delusion,  which  had  been  industriously 
fostered,  Lincoln  said: 

"  Apprehension  seems  to  exist  among  the  people  of  the 
Southern  States  that,  by  the  accession  of  a  Republican  ad- 
ministration, their  property  and  their  peace  and  personal 
security  are  to  be  endangered.  There  never  has  been 


240  Abraham  Lincoln 

any  reasonable  cause  for  such  apprehension.  Indeed,  the 
most  ample  evidence  to  the  contrary  has  all  the  while 
existed,  and  been  open  to  their  inspection.  It  is  found  in 
nearly  all  the  published  speeches  of  him  who  now  ad- 
dresses you.  I  do  but  quote  from  one  of  those  speeches 
when  I  declare  that  '  I  have  no  purpose,  directly  or  in- 
directly, to  interfere  with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the 
States  where  it  exists :  I  believe  I  have  no  lawful  right  to 
do  so.  Those  who  nominated  and  elected  me  did  so  with 
the  full  knowledge  that  I  had  made  this  and  many 
similar  declarations,  and  had  never  recanted  them." 

These  were  reassuring  words ;  words  anxiously  de- 
signed to  conciliate  the  South,  to  remove  possible 
misapprehensions,  and  allay  groundless  suspicions. 
We  shall  see  how  ineffectual  they  were  to  change  the 
determination  of  the  men  who  had  resolved  upon 
rebellion.  In  like  manner  he  committed  himself  to 
the  doctrine,  enunciated  in  the  Federal  Constitution, 
that  a  slave  who  escapes  from  a  slave  State  into  a 
free  State  is  not  thereby  made  free ;  for  the  doctrine 
of  the  Republicans  was  that  only  the  voluntary 
bringing  of  a  slave  into  free  territory  emancipated 
him.  And  it  was  shocking  to  some  of  Lincoln's 
more  radical  friends  that  he  should  thus  justify  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law  as  constitutional.  Lincoln  merely 
insisted  on  such  an  administration  of  the  law  that  no 
free  man,  under  any  circumstances,  should  be  sur- 
rendered as  a  slave. 

He  traced  the  process  by  which  the  Union  of  the 
States  had  been  formed  and  the  Constitution  had 
become  the  fundamental  law  of  the  Republic,  from 
which  he  argued  that  an  act  of  secession,  so-called, 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  241 

was  of  no  effect ;  that  no  State  could  leave  the  Union 
without  the  assent  of  the  other  States  of  that  Union. 
This  is  the  way  he  put  the  case:  "It  follows  from 
these  views  that  no  State,  upon  its  own  mere  motion, 
can  lawfully  get  out  of  the  Union ;  that  resolves  and 
ordinances  to  that  effect  are  legally  void;  and  that 
acts  of  violence  within  any  State,  or  States,  against 
the  authority  of  the  United  States  are  insurrection- 
ary, or  revolutionary,  according  to  circumstances." 
Then  Lincoln,  having  shown  by  a  clear  and  luminous 
argument  that  no  State  could  "lawfully  get  out  of 
the  Union,"  proceeded  to  say  that  the  oath  to  sup- 
port the  Constitution  expressly  enjoined  on  him  the 
duty  of  seeing  that  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
were  faithfully  executed  in  all  the  States;  and  that 
he  should  do  this  until  the  sovereign  people,  the 
rightful  masters,  should  refuse  to  supply  him  with 
the  means  of  enforcing  that  authority  or  in  some 
authontative  manner  direct  to  the  contrary.  But 
he  immediately  added,  as  if  solicitous  that  his  peace- 
ful and  amicable  intentions  should  be  fully  appre- 
ciated :  ' '  I  trust  this  will  not  be  regarded  as  a  menace, 
but  only  as  the  declared  purpose  of  the  Union  that  it 
will  constitutionally  defend  and  maintain  itself.  In 
doing  this  there  need  be  no  bloodshed  or  violence,  and 
there  shall  be  none  unless  it  is  forced  upon  the  na- 
tional authority." 

It  was  this  express,  solemn,  and  emphatic  de- 
claration of  the  incoming  President  that  discon- 
certed the  Rebel  leaders.  They  had  expected  that 
Lincoln  would  threaten ;  but,  with  his  usual  sagacity, 
he  laid  upon  his  enemies,  the  enemies  of  the  Union, 


242  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  responsibility  of  beginning  the  war,  if  war  was  to 
be.  Lincoln  was  always,  as  we  have  seen,  fair  and 
generous  in  his  treatment  of  his  opponents.  This 
generosity  breathed  in  every  line  of  his  inaugural 
address.  Nevertheless,  nothing  would  move  him  to 
surrender  a  principle  once  accepted  as  truth.  Pass- 
ing from  this  pleading  for  full  faith  and  confidence 
in  his  peaceable  intentions,  he  immediately  added: 
"The  power  confided  to  me  will  be  used  to  hold, 
occupy,  and  possess  the  property  and  places  belong- 
ing to  the  Government."  The  men  who,  even  then, 
were  planning  to  seize  forts,  arsenals,  and  other  gov- 
ernmental property,  as  their  "share"  of  the  property 
of  the  old  Union,  were  doubtless  glad  to  hear  this 
utterance.  They  wanted  war.  Lincoln  said  that 
there  would  be  no  invasion ;  but  this  property  of  the 
Republic  would  be  held  and  defended.  The  Rebel 
leaders  knew  that  they  were  ready  to  seize  this  prop- 
erty, and  that  bloodshed  and  violence  must  needs 
come.  Lincoln's  plea  for  peace,  while  it  was  pur- 
posely designed  to  appease  the  South,  had  the  effect 
of  turning  upon  the  Rebel  leaders  the  responsibility 
of  beginning  and  inviting  hostilities. 

Lincoln  also  argued  against  the  possibility  of  a 
complete  separation  of  the  Northern  States  and  the 
Southern  States,  even  should  both  consent,  or  agree, 
to  such  an  attempt  at  a  division  of  the  Republic. 
"Physically  speaking,"  he  said,  "we  cannot  sepa- 
rate ;  we  cannot  remove  our  respective  sections  from 
each  other,  nor  build  an  impassable  wall  between 
them.  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced,  and 
go  out  of  the  presence  and  beyond  the  reach  of  each 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  243 

other,  but  the  different  parts  of  our  country  cannot 
do  this."  And  he  showed  that  they  must  remain 
face  to  face,  either  as  friends  or  enemies,  and  that 
there  must  be  intercourse  between  the  two ;  and  that 
it  would  not  be  possible  to  make  that  intercourse 
more  advantageous  as  aliens  than  it  then  was  as 
friends.  Lincoln  showed  his  undying  faith  in  the 
people  by  saying,  after  he  had  argued  pleadingly  for 
his  proposition  that  the  whole  matter  in  dispute 
should  be  left  to  the  people:  "While  the  people 
retain  their  virtue  and  vigilance,  no  administration, 
by  any  extreme  wickedness  or  folly,  can  very  seri- 
ously injure  the  Government  in  the  short  space  of 
four  years." 

As  Lincoln's  voice,  trained  to  open-air  speaking, 
rang  out,  clear  and  resonant,  above  the  vast  throngs 
of  people  before  him,  the  feelings  of  those  who  heard 
him  were  deeply  stirred.  The  intense,  passionate 
love  for  the  Union  that  had  been  developed  since  its 
existence  had  been  threatened,  manifested  itself  in 
spontaneous  cheering  whenever  any  allusion  to  that 
sacred  compact  fell  on  their  ears.  Everybody  hoped 
for  the  best — hoped  that  the  Union  might  be  saved 
and  war  averted.  But  it  was  also  true  that  the 
people  cheered  lustily  at  every  expression  of  the  new 
President's  determination  to  maintain  the  dignity  of 
the  Government  and  defend  the  public  property.  It 
was  evident  that  those  who  heard  the  inaugural  ad- 
dress were,  like  Lincoln,  glad  to  avail  themselves  of 
every  honorable  device  to  keep  the  peace  and  avoid 
war,  but  likewise  determined  to  surrender  no  vital 
principle  for  the  sake  of  present  peace.  Lincoln's 


244  Abraham  Lincoln 

voice  was  naturally  plaintive,  and  it  sounded  sadly 
and  with  pathetic  pleading  as  he  ended  his  address 
with  the  eloquent  words : 

"  I  am  loth  to  close.  We  are  not  enemies,  but  friends. 
We  must  not  be  enemies.  Though  passion  may  have 
strained,  it  must  not  break  our  bonds  of  affection.  The 
mystic  cords  of  memory,  stretching  from  every  battle- 
field and  patriot  grave  to  every  living  heart  and  hearth- 
stone all  over  this  broad  land,  will  yet  swell  the  chorus  of 
the  Union,  when  again  touched,  as  surely  they  will  be,  by 
the  better  angels  of  our  nature." 

The  oration  was  done.  Its  affectionate  and  tender 
appeal  fell  on  unheeding  ears,  so  far  as  it  was  ad- 
dressed to  the  South  and  to  the  Southern  leaders. 
They  were  resolved  on  war — war  for  which  they  had 
long  been  secretly  preparing.  Their  response  to 
these  loving  words  was  only  in  terms  of  coarse  jest 
and  derision.  But  a  responsive  shout  of  approval 
went  up  from  the  loyal  North.  Lincoln's  speech  was 
especially  indorsed  by  the  calm  judgment  of  patriotic 
people.  And  among  those  who  pressed  about  Presi- 
dent Lincoln,  when  he  had  solemnly  taken  his  oath 
to  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitution  of 
the  Republic,  was  Stephen  A.  Doulgas,  Lincoln's 
ancient  opponent  in  the  field  of  politics.  When  Lin- 
coln rose  to  begin  his  address,  he  held  his  hat  in  his 
hand.  Looking  about  in  the  press  for  a  place  to 
bestow  his  head-covering,  his  eye  caught  that  of 
Douglas,  who  immediately  reached  forward  and  took 
it ;  and  he  held  Lincoln's  hat  while  he  delivered  his 
inaugural  oration.  When  it  was  finished,  Douglas 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  245 

restored  the  hat  to  its  owner,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  grasped  the  new  President's  hand  and  warmly 
assured  him  that  he,  his  sometime  political  rival,  not 
only  congratulated  him  on  his  accession  to  high  office, 
but  pledged  him  that  he  would  stand  by  him  and 
give  him  hearty  support  in  upholding  the  Constitu- 
tion and  enforcing  the  laws  of  the  country.  The 
two  men  clasped  hands,  and  the  "Sangamon  Chief" 
and  the  "Little  Giant  of  Illinois"  were  friends  ever 
after. 

It  had  been  feared  that  some  attempt  would  be 
made  on  Lincoln's  life  while  on  his  way  to  or  from 
the  Capitol,  where  the  inauguration  ceremony  took 
place.  Gen.  Scott,  who  was  in  charge  of  the  military 
arrangements,  used  every  possible  precaution  to 
thwart  any  such  plot  as  might  have  been  on  foot. 
But,  even  then,  many  timid  people  were  afraid  that 
sharp-shooters  might  be  concealed  on  the  roofs  or 
in  the  upper  floors  of  the  houses  along  the  route  of 
the  procession,  and  fire  at  Lincoln  as  he  was  slowly 
driven  to  and  fro.  Therefore,  everybody  felt  relieved 
when  the  ceremony  was  over  and  President  Lincoln 
was  safely  in  the  White  House,  his  family  about  him, 
and  his  term  of  office  formally  begun.  Mr.  Buchanan 
the  outgoing  President,  accompanied  Mr.  Lincoln  to 
the  Capitol  and  returned  with  him  to  the  White 
House,  where,  after  shaking  hands  with  his  suc- 
cessor, ex-President  Buchanan  left  him.  He  was 
undoubtedly  glad  to  lay  down  the  cares  of  the 
Government ;  and,  having  so  administered  affairs  as 
to  make  things  very  difficult  for  him  who  came  after 
him  in  office,  he  went  away  leaving  few  people  to 


246  Abraham  Lincoln 

regret  his  going  out  of  office.  Buchanan  went  out  of 
place  when  the  affairs  of  the  Government  were  in  the 
most  hopeless  condition  of  disorder  and  confusion. 
Lincoln  came  in  when  treason  was  rampant  in  every 
department  of  the  Government ;  the  army  and  navy 
were  scattered  far  and  wide;  the  national  treasury 
was  empty  and  the  national  credit  at  a  very  low  ebb ; 
an  armed  rebellion  was  threatening  the  existence  of 
the  Union  and  the  permanency  of  the  Government ; 
and  many  people  who  were  not  friends  of  the  seces- 
sionists were  uncertain  whether  the  National  Govern- 
ment had  the  lawful  right,  if  it  had  the  power,  to 
prevent  the  Southern  States  from  going  out  of  the 
Union  and  staying  out  of  it,  as  they  proposed  to  do. 
Even  at  this  late  day,  when  Lincoln  was  inaugurated, 
there  were  not  a  few  loyal  men  who  thought  that  it 
would  be  best,  rather  than  resort  to  blows,  to  say  to 
the  Southern  States,  "Erring  sisters,  go  in  peace." 
Lincoln  could  not  possibly  take  that  view  of  the  case. 
How  would  he  try  to  preserve  the  Federal  Union? 
Everybody  was  asking  this  grave  question. 

The  first  duty  of  the  President  was  the  formation 
of  his  Cabinet.  These  were  the  men  selected  for  the 
purpose  of  assisting  Lincoln  in  carrying  on  the 
Government  in  the  trying  times  that  were  coming: 
Secretary  of  State,  William  H.  Seward ;  Secretary  of 
War,  Simon  Cameron;  Secretary  of  the  Treasury, 
Salmon  P.  Chase;  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Gideon 
Welles;  Postmaster-General,  Montgomery  Blair; 
Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Caleb  B.  Smith;  Attorney- 
General,  Edward  Bates. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  of  these  seven  men,  four — 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  247 

Seward,  Chase,  Bates,  and  Cameron — had  been 
candidates  for  the  Presidential  nomination  when 
Lincoln  was,  in  1860;  but  Mr.  Cameron's  candidacy 
was  not  very  seriously  pressed.  Many  of  Lincoln's 
friends  were  troubled  by  his  having  selected  for 
Cabinet  councillors  men  who  were  ambitious  of 
occupying  the  Presidential  office,  and  who  might 
prove  mischievous  by  scheming  for  the  next  nomina- 
tion, which  would  be  made  in  1864.  Mr.  Seward  and 
Mr.  Chase,  especially,  were  men  who  each  had  a  great 
political  following,  and  who  might  naturally  be 
active  in  schemes  to  secure  the  Presidential  office  by 
and  by.  But,  although  Lincoln's  friends  were  thus 
disturbed,  the  President  was  sure  he  was  right.  It 
was  necessary,  he  thought,  to  unite  in  the  support  of 
his  administration  all  the  factions  and  all  the  con- 
tending interests  of  the  loyal  States,  as  far  as  that  was 
possible.  With  one  exception,  that  of  Mr.  Welles, 
each  man  in  the  Cabinet  represented  a  large  political 
following  and  a  different  section  of  the  country  at 
large.  Lincoln  said  to  his  personal  advisers:  "The 
times  are  too  grave  and  perilous  for  ambitious  schemes 
and  personal  rivalries."  He  could  not  believe  it 
possible  that  statesmen  of  the  ability  and  renown  of 
those  whom  he  had  called  around  him  could  cherish 
plans  for  their  personal  aggrandizement  while  the 
life  of  the  Republic  was  in  danger.  "I  need  them 
all,"  he  said;  "they  enjoy  the  confidence  of  their 
several  States  and  sections,  and  they  will  strengthen 
the  administration."  To  others  associated  with  him 
in  the  management  of  affairs,  he  said:  "Let  us  for- 
get ourselves  and  join  hands,  like  brothers,  to  save 


248  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  Republic.     If  we  succeed,  there  will  be  glory 
enough  for  all." 

It  is  not  generally  the  custom  of  our  people  to  call 
any  man  the  leader  of  the  Cabinet,  the  premier,  but 
Mr.  Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  was  a  statesman  of 
commanding  ability  and  wisdom;  and  his  high 
qualities  as  a  scholar,  diplomatist,  writer,  and 
speaker,  unquestionably  adorned  his  office  and  shed 
lustre  on  the  Lincoln  administration.  During  his 
term,  for  the  first  time  in  our  history,  the  Secretary 
of  State  was  often  spoken  of  as  "the  premier," 
although  that  title  was  never  officially  recognized. 
Mr.  Seward  had  been  Governor  of  the  great  State  of 
New  York,  and  Senator  of  the  United  States.  A 
skilful  politician  and  a  most  persuasive  orator,  he 
had  done  much  to  consolidate  and  harmonize  the 
Republican  party.  His  selection  to  what  is  popu- 
larly regarded  as  the  first  place  in  the  Cabinet  greatly 
pleased  the  people. 

Of  the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet,  Mr.  Chase 
was  probably  the  best  known  and  respected,  after 
Mr.  Seward.  He,  too,  had  been  Governor  of  his 
State  (Ohio)  as  well  as  Senator  of  the  United  States. 
He  was  a  more  advanced,  or  radical,  Republican 
than  any  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Cabinet,  having  been 
regarded  as  an  Abolitionist.  He  framed  the  plat- 
form of  the  Liberty,  or  Free-Soil,  party  that  was 
adopted  in  Buffalo  in  1848.  He  was  a  lawyer  of 
profound  learning,  and  his  mind  was  judicial  and 
well-balanced.  He  had  had  much  to  do  with  the 
upbuilding  of  the  Republican  party,  and,  like  Mr. 
Seward,  had  been  the  beloved  candidate  of  many 


Lincoln's  Inauguration  249 

ardent  party  men  when  Lincoln  was  made  the  final 
choice  of  the  organization.  Mr.  Cameron,  as  Secre- 
tary of  War,  was  also  an  active  and  useful  politician 
and  leader  of  men.  He  was  accused  of  giving  out 
profitable  contracts  and  lucrative  oifices  to  his 
friends,  as  he  had  the  power  to  do ;  and,  after  a  few 
months  of  service,  he  retired  from  the  War  Depart- 
ment, giving  place  to  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  who  had 
been  Buchanan's  Attorney -General  toward  the 
stormy  close  of  that  administration.  The  Blair 
family,  always  Democratic,  had  exercised  great 
influence  in  national  affairs,  Francis  P.  Blair,  senior, 
having  been  a  close  friend  of  President  Andrew 
Jackson,  and,  as  editor  of  the  Washington  Globe,  a 
leader  of  public  opinion.  The  sons,  Montgomery 
and  Francis  P.  Blair,  junior,  were  active  and  zealous 
politicians.  Montgomery,  as  Postmaster-General, 
represented  Maryland,  one  of  the  border  States. 
New  England  was  represented  in  Gideon  Welles, 
of  Connecticut,  as  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Mr.  Caleb 
B.  Smith,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  was  of  Illinois, 
and  had  been  in  Congress  when  Lincoln  represented 
the  Sangamon  district  in  that  body.  Edward  Bates, 
whom'  many  supported  for  the  Presidential  nomina- 
tion in  1860,  was  a  gentleman  of  refinement,  great 
learning,  and  dignity.  He  was  a  lawyer,  and,  as 
Attorney-General,  had  served  his  country  with 
eminent  skill.  He  was  formerly  a  Whig,  and,  being 
of  Missouri,  was  a  border  State  representative.  Thus, 
the  States  represented  in  the  Cabinet  by  these  men, 
all  of  them  amply  qualified  for  the  proper  discharge 
of  their  duties,  were  New  York,  Ohio,  Pennsylvania, 


250  Abraham  Lincoln 

Maryland,  Connecticut,  Illinois,  and  Missouri.  Mr. 
Stanton,  who  subsequently  succeeded  Mr.  Cameron 
in  the  War  Department,  was  a  resident  of  Ohio.  It 
will  be  seen  that  these  seven  men  represented  a  great 
variety  of  political  sentiments  and  opinions.  They 
did  not  always  agree.  Lincoln  sometimes  facetiously 
referred  to  the  Cabinet  as  the  Happy  Family. 

By  those  who  knew  Seward  and  did  not  know 
Lincoln,  it  was  supposed  that  the  former  would  be 
virtually  the  President,  and  that  beyond  the  signing 
of  important  papers  Lincoln  would  have  very  little 
to  do  with  shaping  the  policy  of  the  administra- 
tion. Mr.  Seward  undertook  to  revise  and  rewrite 
the  inaugural  address  above  described.  Subse- 
quently, he  mapped  out  a  plan  of  administrative 
operations  for  the  President,  volunteering  to  take 
the  general  direction  of  affairs,  if  this  were  required 
of  him.  It  was  not  required  of  him,  and  they  who 
had  expected  that  Mr.  Seward  or  anybody  else 
would  act  as  President  in  place  of  Lincoln  were  soon 
undeceived.  By  his  vigor,  firmness,  and  unshrink- 
ing determination,  Lincoln  speedily  showed  the 
world  that  he,  and  not  another,  was  the  President  of 
the  United  States. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

PRESIDENT   ABRAHAM   LINCOLN. 

In  the  White  House — Assembling  of  the  Rebel  Congress — Rebel  Emis- 
saries Sent  to  Washington — A  Vigorous  Policy  Clamored  for — 
The  First  Gun  at  Sumter — Great  Excitement  throughout  the 
Republic — A  Nation  in  Arms — Attack  on  the  Sixth  Massachu- 
setts— Notable  Deaths. 

WHEN  he  installed  himself  in  the  White  House, 
the  official  residence  of  Presidents  of  the 
United  States,  Lincoln  found  that  two  lamentable 
features  of  affairs  were  really  not  wholly  unobjection- 
able, from  one  point  of  view.  He  was  surrounded 
by  hordes  of  office-seekers;  the  country  was  on  the 
brink  of  war.  Nevertheless,  with  his  ready  way  of 
finding  something  encouraging,  even  in  calamities, 
he  said  that  if  the  people  of  the  loyal  States  did  not 
have  implicit  confidence  in  the  stability  of  the  Union 
and  the  Government  they  would  not  flock  in  such 
numbers  to  Washington  to  hunt  for  places  under 
that  Government.  And,  although  Buchanan's  ad- 
ministration had  gone  out  of  power  leaving  every- 
thing in  the  wildest  confusion,  it  had  left  no  policy 
for  Lincoln  to  revoke  or  modify.  As  he  expressed 
it,  there  was  nothing  to  be  undone.  Buchanan  had 
merely  let  things  drift.  The  Rebels,  meanwhile, 
had  been  busily  engaged  in  beginning  their  so-called 
Confederacy.  But  they  made  very  little  progress. 

.251  _ 


252  Abraham  Lincoln 

No  troops  had  been  sent  against  them.  They  had 
no  "armed  invader"  to  repel,  as  they  had  expected. 
Although  the  bulk  of  the  United  States  army  was 
practically  in  their  hands,  they  had  no  excuse  for 
fighting,  none  for  that  invasion  of  the  North  which 
their  leaders  had  promised  and  some  of  their  allies 
in  the  free  States  had  expected. 

The  Rebel  Congress  assembled  at  Montgomery, 
and,  on  the  ninth  of  March,  1861,  passed  a  bill  for  the 
organization  of  an  army.  This  was  an  insurrec- 
tionary measure,  and  was  intended  to  draw  the  fire, 
so  to  speak,  of  the  Government.  But  no  steps  were 
taken  by  Lincoln.  Next,  two  commissioners,  or 
emissaries,  Mr.  Forsyth  of  Alabama,  and  Mr.  Craw- 
ford of  Georgia,  were  sent  to  Washington  to  nego- 
tiate a  treaty  with  the  United  States  Government, 
just  as  if  they  represented  a  foreign  government. 
They  presented  themselves  at  the  State  Department, 
but  no  official  reception  was  accorded  them,  and 
when  they  applied  to  Lincoln,  the  President  refused 
to  see  them,  but  sent  them,  with  a  certain  grim 
humor,  a  copy  of  his  inaugural  address  as  an  intima- 
tion of  the  views  which,  as  President  of  the  United 
States,  he  had  just  enunciated.  They  were  in  a 
quandary.  Doubtless  they  expected  to  be  arrested, 
as  they  might  have  been,  being  openly  in  rebellion 
against  the  Government  and  liable  to  be  tried  for 
treason.  Still,  the  President  did  nothing.  The 
commissioners  dallied  in  the  national  capital  for  a 
time,  in  communication  with  their  friends  in  the 
South,  and  gleaning  what  information  they  could. 
In  order  to  delay  their  departure,  they  had  asked 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  253 

that  the  reply  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Seward, 
should  be  given  to  them  as  late  as  the  eighth  of 
April,  and  this  request  was  acceded  to.  It  was, 
taken  altogether,  a  most  extraordinary  situation. 
Several  States  of  the  Union  were  formally  in  revolt 
against  the  Government  of  the  Republic,  with  a  so- 
called  Congress  in  session,  a  full-fledged  Government 
in  running  order,  an  army  and  navy  in  process  of 
formation,  and  diplomatic  agents  at  the  capital  of 
the  nation.  Lincoln  made  no  sign. 

While  the  commissioners,  Forsyth  and  Crawford,' 
were  hanging  about  Washington,  Mr.  Talbot,  a 
lieutenant  in  the  United  States  army,  had  been  sent 
to  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  by  the  President,  to 
notify  the  authorities  of  that  State  and  Gen.  Beau- 
regard,  commander  of  the  Rebel  forces,  that  Fort 
Sumter,  in  Charleston  Harbor,  would  be  provisioned 
at  all  hazards.  This  determination  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  also  communicated  to  Forsyth  and  Craw- 
ford in  Washington.  On  the  eighth  of  April,  Secre- 
tary Seward's  formal  reply  was  given  to  the  com- 
missioners, although  it  was  dated  March  fifteenth. 
In  the  document,  which  was  a  memorandum  merely, 
Mr.  Seward  formally  told  the  commissioners  that 
they  could  have  no  recognition  from  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States. 

In  their  reply,  the  commissioners  said  that  they 
had  expected  the  document  earlier,  although  they 
acknowledged  that  they  had,  as  they  expressed 
it,  "consented"  to  a  delay;  and  they  intimated 
that  this  delay  had  been  availed  of  by  the  United 
States  Government  to  prepare  for  war.  Referring  to 


254  Abraham  Lincoln 

President  Lincoln's  expressed  intention  to  send  relief 
to  Fort  Sumter,  they  said  that  this  was,  in  effect,  "a 
declaration  of  war  against  the  Confederate  States," 
and  that,  as  representatives  of  their  people,  they 
accepted  "the  gage  of  battle  there  thrown  down  to 
them."  They  accordingly  departed  to  their  own 
country,  hopeful  that  the  Government  had  forced 
upon  them  an  attitude  of  defence.  Still,  no  overt 
act  of  warfare  was  permitted  by  Lincoln,  who 
patiently  waited  for  the  Rebels  to  fire  the  first  gun. 
He  had  not  long  to  wait. 

The  city  of  Charleston  was  seething  with  a  mob  of 
secessionists,  impatient  for  the  war  to  open.  The 
newspapers  and  the  more  prominent  leaders  clamored 
for  hostilities  to  be  begun  by  the  Southern  States. 
In  a  public  speech,  delivered  in  Charleston,  April  10, 
1 86 1,  Mr.  Roger  A.  Pryor,  of  Virginia,  declared  that 
no  terms  of  agreement  could  be  acceptable  to  the 
South  short  of  recognition  of  the  Confederacy.  Other 
Southerners  expressed  similar  opinions.  The  senti- 
ment in  the  South  was  overwhelmingly  in  favor  of 
beginning  active  hostilities  against  "the  old  Union," 
as  the  phrase  went.  The  leaders  were  determined, 
if  possible,  to  trick  the  President  into  giving  them  a 
pretext  for  war.  On  his  part  he  was  equally 
determined  that  the  overt  act,  for  which  everybody 
was  waiting  and  about  which  everybody  was  talking, 
should  come  from  the  Rebels. 

The  delay  was  exasperating  to  many  of  the  people 
of  the  loyal  States.  Men  clamored  for  "a  vigorous 
policy,"  although  just  such  a  policy  had  been  dis- 
tinctly laid  down  in  the  inaugural  of  the  President. 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  255 

They  wanted  something  done,  and  they  could  not 
see  why  Lincoln  should  wait.  The  newspapers  and 
public  speakers  of  the  North  generally  demanded 
that  the  traitors  should  be  arrested  and  punished. 
Especially  was  the  attention  of  the  whole  people, 
North  and  South,  fixed  upon  Fort  Sumter,  where 
Major  Robert  Anderson  was  in  command  of  a  very 
small  force  of  United  States  troops.  The  Rebels 
regarded  the  occupation  of  that  fort  as  a  standing 
menace  to  the  city  of  Charleston,  and  they  had, 
moreover,  all  along  insisted  that  all  forts,  arsenals, 
and  other  public  property  of  the  United  States 
within  the  limits  of  the  so-called  Confederacy  were 
now  the  property  of  the  seceded  States,  being  their 
"share"  of  the  joint  property  of  the  now  divided 
Union.  The  garrison  of  Fort  Sumter  had  been  on 
the  mainland  previously,  but  when  the  troubles 
began,  Major  Anderson  moved  his  command  to  Fort 
Sumter  one  night,  to  the  great  wrath  of  the  Rebels, 
who  construed  this  as  "an  overt  act"  of  hostility 
from  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  The 
Major  Anderson  to  whom  reference  is  here  made  is 
the  same  who,  as  Lieutenant  Anderson,  swore 
Abraham  Lincoln  into  the  military  service  of  the 
United  States  during  the  Black  Hawk  war,  in  1832. 
Since  that  time  many  changes  had  occurred.  One 
of  the  three  regular  officers  who  were  at  Dixon's 
Ferry,  preparing  for  the  war  with  Black  Hawk's 
men,  was  now  in  command  of  beleaguered  Sumter. 
Another,  Zachary  Taylor,  had  been  President  of  the 
United  States,  and  was  dead.  Another,  Jefferson 
Davis,  was  President  of  the  Rebel  Confederacy.  And 


256  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  volunteer  captain  was  President  of  the  United 
States. 

The  Rebels  erected  batteries  on  the  land  command- 
ing Fort  Sumter,  and  their  guns  were  trained  upon 
the  fortification  with  a  view  to  compelling  its  sur- 
render. The  feeling  of  the  men  who  were  nearest  to 
the  President  was  that  the  fort  should  be  reinforced 
and  provisioned  and  held  at  all  hazards.  It  was 
the  pivotal  point  of  the  impending  struggle,  it  was 
said,  and  the  fort  should  be  held  as  a  token  that  the 
authority  of  the  Government  was  yet  unbroken  in 
the  South.  Fort  Pickens,  in  the  harbor  of  Pensacola, 
had  been  relieved  by  orders  from  Washington,  and  the 
Rebels  were  greatly  enraged  thereat.  General  Scott, 
on  the  other  hand,  advised  that  the  fort  in  Charles- 
ton Harbor  should  be  abandoned,  as  a  military 
necessity.  Finally,  President  Lincoln  notified  Beau- 
regard,  commanding  the  Rebel  forces  at  Charleston, 
that  Fort  Sumter  would  shortly  be  provisioned. 
This  would  be  an  act  of  humanity.  The  garrison 
were  suffering  for  lack  of  food.  But  the  Rebel 
authorities  were  determined  to  consider  the  sending 
of  provisions  to  Sumter  as  that  "overt  act "  for  which 
they  had  been  so  long  waiting.  Accordingly,  Beau- 
regard,  April  1 2th,  sent  a  message  to  Anderson 
demanding  the  surrender  of  Fort  Sumter.  Anderson 
declined  to  surrender.  He  was  then  asked  if  he 
would  evacuate  the  fort,  to  which  he  replied  that  he 
would  leave  it  on  the  i5th,  provided  he  did  not 
receive  instructions  to  the  contrary,  or  succor  from 
the  North  before  the  day  arrived.  Beauregard 
then  sent  word  in  a  despatch,  dated  at  Charleston, 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  257 

April  12,  1861,  3:30  A.M.,  that  in  one  hour  he  would 
open  fire  on  Fort  Sumter.  At  half -past  four  in  the 
morning,  true  to  his  word,  Beauregard  fired  the  first 
gun.  An  aged  secessionist — Ruffin  by  name — was 
permitted  the  privilege  of  firing  the  first  gun.  It 
was  said  that  this  was  the  final  knell  of  the  Union, 
and  many  estimable  men  and  women  in  Charleston, 
as  well  as  throughout  the  South,  envied  the  amateur 
gunner  that  which  was  thought  to  be  a  very  precious 
and  glorious  privilege.  The  fort  was  feebly  de- 
fended. The  entire  force  left  to  man  the  fortifica- 
tions in  Charleston  Harbor  by  the  treacherous  Floyd, 
Buchanan's  Secretary  of  War,  was  only  sixty-five 
men,  instead  of  the  one  thousand  or  more  usually 
required.  The  troops  were  now  nearly  famished, 
and,  after  a  few  replies  to  the  fierce  cannonading 
from  the  Rebel  batteries,  the  flag  of  the  United 
States  fell  from  Fort  Sumter.  On  the  following  day, 
April  1 3th,  according  to  stipulations  under  which 
Anderson  had  surrendered,  the  flag  was  again  hoisted 
and  saluted  with  fifty  gunsX  Then  the  brave  fellows 
marched  out,  and  the  fortress  was  in  possession  of 
the  troops  of  the(f^bet£onfederacy.  sp*. 

/Wo  words  can^  accurately  describe  the  burst  of     |[  V/ 
patriotic  wrath  that  now  swept  over  the  NorttL— -^ 
TE?  Rebels  had  insulted  the  flag  of  trie  Republic, 
had  driven  a  little  fragment  of  the  widely  scattered 
army  out  of  one  of  the  national  defences,  and  had 
hoisted  over  that  work  the  new-fangled  emblem  of  a 
power  that  could  never  be  recognized  as  lawful  by 
any    citizen    of    the    United    States.     Up    to    that 
moment  there  had  been  many  loyal  persons  who 


258  Abraham  Lincoln 

were  doubtful  as  to  the  right  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment to  "coerce"  a  State.  The  doctrines  so  sedu- 
lously preached  during  Buchanan's  last  days'  in  office 
had  many  supporters  in  the  free  States.  Even  up  to 
the  day  before  Sumter  fell,  prominent  politicians 
were  found  in  the  North  ready  to  advocate  the 
organization  of  a  great  compromise  party,  with  the 
Union  so  reconstructed  that  slavery  would  be  recog- 
nized and  protected  everywhere  by  the  law  of  ther 
landXrln  an  instant,  as  it  were,  all  this  rubbishy 
was  swept  away  by  the  flood-tide ofl  pn-trin^jgnritT- 
.rose  in  the  States  of  the  Noraw  With  a  certain/ 

v^  ___1__^ — -^"**   •— ••««•«•«••• ^^^  I 

passionateness  that  would  listen  noxonger  to  talk  of 
compromise,  the  loyal  people  demanded  that  the 
insult  to  the  Republic  should  be  avenged  and  the 
culprits  pursued.  Up  to  that  time,  there  had  been 
no  preparations  for  war  except  those  that  were 
privately  and  even  secretly  carried  on  by  the  orders 
of  Lincoln,  who  knew  that  the  day  was  coming  when 
the  Rebels  would  take  the  responsibility  of  beginning 
the  war.  Now,  in  consequence  of  his  long-suffering 
forbearance  and7his  wise  slowness,  the  gun  had  been 
fired  by  them.  /NThe  North  was  all  aflamej( 
L  Party  ties  disappeared.  There  was  but  one  party 
•that  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  the  defence 
f  the4»soite<!  Republic.  In  the  rush  and  clamor  of 
n  excited  public  opinion,  the  voice  of  partisanship 
as  hushed.  Nobody  dared  to  whisper  a  word  about 
the  unlawfulness  of  coercion,  or  the  impolicy  of  pro- 
voking the  people  of  the  seceded  States.  There  was 
but  one  voice,  and  that  demanded  that  treason 
should  be  suppressed.  President  Lincoln  issued  a 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  259 

call  for  seventy-five  thousand  troops,  in  a  procla- 
mation dated  April  15,  1861.  In  that  document, 
after  reciting  the  fact  that  powerful  combinations  to 
obstruct  the  execution  of  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  existed  in  certain  specified  States,  the  Presi- 
dent appealed  to  all  loyal  citizens  to  promote,  as  far 
as  possible,  the  effort  made  to  defend  and  protect 
the  national  Union  and  to  redress  wrongs  already 
long  enough  endured.  He  declared,  furthermore, 
as  follows : 

"  I  deem  it  proper  to  say  that  the  first  service  assigned  to 
the  force  hereby  called  forth  will  probably  be  to  repossess 
the  forts,  places,  and  property  which  have  been  seized 
from  the  Union ;  and  in  every  case  the  utmost  care  will  be 
observed,  consistently  with  the  objects  aforesaid,  to 
avoid  any  devastation,  any  destruction  of,  or  interference 
with,  property,  or  any  disturbance  of  peaceful  citizens  of 
any  part  of  the  country." 

Even  in  this  extreme  and  trying  moment,  with  the 
full  assurance  of  a  long  war  before  him,  Lincoln  was 
determined  that  nobody  should  justly  say  that  he 
had  let  loose  the  dogs  of  war  without  anxious  desire 
to  save  from  harm  all  innocent  persons.  In  this 
proclamation,  also,  the  persons  in  rebellion  against 
the  Government  were  exhorted  and  commanded  to 
lay  down  their  arms  and  disperse.  At  the  same 
time,  in  view  of  the  gravity  of  the  crisis  that  had 
arisen,  both  houses  of  Congress  were  summoned  to 
meet  at  the  national  capital,  July  4,  1861. 

The  South  had  been  long  preparing  for  war.  The 
Northern  States  were  almost  wholly  unprepared. 


260  Abraham  Lincoln 

Members  of  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  who  had  had 
facilities  for  doing  so,  had  crowded  into  the  States 
of  the  South  every  valuable  means  of  assault  and 
defence  that  the  Government  owned.  In  the  North, 
Lincoln's  call  for  men  was  received  with  tremendous 
enthusiasm.  In  the  South,  it  was  greeted  with 
shrieks  of  derision.  In  the  border  States  (the  States 
lying  between  those  that  were  already,  as  they 
believed,  out  of  the  Union,  and  the  free  States)  the 
call  for  troops  was  received  with  coldness.  The 
attitude  of  these  States — Virginia,  Missouri,  Tennes- 
see, Maryland,  and  others — had  been  an  object  of 
great  anxiety  to  the  President  and  his  advisers. 
Indeed,  for  a  long  time  after  the  war  actually  began, 
what  the  border  States  would  say  and  do  was  thought 
to  be  of  very  great  importance.  If  they  joined  the 
Rebel  Confederacy,  all  was  lost.  If  they  preserved  a 
neutral  attitude,  it  was  felt  that  their  inclinations 
would  be  towards  the  Rebels,  and  that  their  territory 
would  be  a  convenient  camping-ground  for  men  bent 
upon  an  invasion  of  the  loyal  North.  This  latter 
idea  was  industriously  cultivated  in  the  South,  and 
newspapers  and  speakers  of  that  time  constantly 
referred  to  the  certainty  that  the  Confederate  flag 
would  soon  float  over  the  Capitol  at  Washington,  and 
that  Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet  would  become  fugitives. 
The  Governor  of  Delaware  issued  a  call  for  troops 
to  defend  the  property  and  citizens  of  that -State 
from  violence,  and,  taking  the  ground  that  he  had 
no  authority  to  respond  with  State  troops  to  a  call 
from  the  National  Government,  he  said  that  troops 
volunteering  might  choose  between  defending  home 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  261 

interests  and  offering  their  services  to  the  National 
Government.  The  Governor  of  Maryland  called  out 
four  regiments  of  militia  to  serve  within  the  limits 
of  the  State.  The  Governor  of  Virginia  replied  to  the 
call  in  a  letter  addressed  to  the  President,  in  which 
he  denounced  Lincoln's  call  for  troops  as  an  attempt 
to  subjugate  the  South ;  and  he  defied  the  adminis- 
tration in  bitter  terms.  The  Governor  of  North 
Carolina  replied  in  a  similar  vein,  declaring  that  he 
would  be  no  party  to  ' '  this  war  upon  the  liberties  of 
a  free  people."  The  Governor  of  Kentucky  made 
answer  that  that  State  would  "furnish  no  troops  for 
the  wicked  purpose  of  subduing  her  sister  Southern 
States."  The  Governors  of  Tennessee  and  Arkansas 
replied  in  a  like  strain ;  and  the  Governor  of  Missouri, 
who  afterwards  took  part  in  the  war  against  the 
Government,  said:  "Your  requisition  is  illegal, 
unconstitutional,  revolutionary,  inhuman,  diabolical, 
and  cannot  be  complied  with." 

These  singular  utterances  of  Governors  of  States 
forming  parts  of  the  American  Republic  are  of  inter- 
est now  as  showing,  in  some  degree,  the  condition  of 
feeling  that  existed  along  that  line  between  the  old 
cotton-growing,  slave-breeding  section  of  the  Union 
and  the  free  States  of  the  North. 

Far  different  was  the  response  from  the  loyal 
North.  Massachusetts  was  .the  first  to  reply  with 
troops  ready  for  the  march.  John  A.  Andrew,  then 
and  afterwards  a  devoted  friend  of  the  Union,  and  a 
patriot  of  unswerving  fidelity,  was  Governor  of  the 
State.  He  responded  with  four  regiments  of  men 
within  forty-eight  hours  after  Lincoln's  proclamation 


262  Abraham  Lincoln 

was  received.  It  should  be  said  here  that  the  readi- 
ness of  Massachusetts  to  answer  with  fighting  men 
was  largely  due  to  the  vigilance  of  Nathaniel  P. 
Banks,  who,  when  Governor  of  that  State,  some  years 
before,  placed  the  militia  on  a  footing  of  such  effi- 
ciency as  to  armament  and  drill  that  they  were  pre- 
pared for  the  call  which,  as  he  had  long  believed, 
must  eventually  come.  The  Governor  of  Rhode 
Island,  William  Sprague,  called  the  Legislature 
together,  offered  the  Government  one  thousand 
infantry  and  a  battalion  of  artillery,  and,  placing 
himself  at  the  head  of  these  forces,  marched  to 
Washington.  Governor  Morgan,  of  New  York,  and 
Governor  Curtin,  of  Pennsylvania,  responded  with  a 
like  promptness  and  with  the  tender  of  the  vast 
resources  of  these  two  great  States.  It  was  a 
Pennsylvania  regiment,  hastily  despatched,  that 
first  reached  the  national  capital,  just  in  time  to 
defeat  a  seizure  by  the  Rebel  forces.  In  the  North- 
west, where  Lincoln  was  idolized  by  the  people,  the 
rush  to  arms  in  defence  of  the  Union  was  wonderful. 
Under  the  call  for  men,  Ohio's  quota  was  thirteen 
thousand  men.  Within  a  week  after  that  call  was 
issued,  seventy-one  thousand  had  offered  their  ser- 
vices to  the  Governor  of  that  State,  the  patriotic 
Dennison. 

This  fiery  and  determined  temper  prevailed 
throughout  the  free  States  of  the  North.  It  is  no 
exaggeration  to  say  that  men  fought  for  the  privilege 
of  fighting  for  the  country  and  the  flag.  Those  who 
were  compelled  to  remain  behind  regarded  their  more 
fortunate  fellow-townsmen  with  envy.  Lincoln  had 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  263 

called  for  seventy-five  thousand.  More  than  five 
hundred  thousand  had  sprung  to  arms  in  response  to 
the  call.  Those  who  were  chosen  were  the  citizen 
soldiers  of  the  Republic.  They  were  drawn  from 
homes  and  families  in  which  the  lessons  of  patriotism 
had  been  taught  them  from  childhood.  They  were 
the  sons  of  honorable  men  and  women,  many  of 
whom  were  the  direct  lineal  descendants  of  those  who 
fought  for  the  independence  of  the  Republic.  They 
went  forth  to  battle  for  the  imperilled  Union  fol- 
lowed by  the  prayers  and  cheered  by  the  willing  con- 
sent of  fathers  and  mothers.  Such  an  outpouring 
has  never  been  seen  elsewhere  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  "Liberty  and  Union"  was  the  watchword  of 
these  ardent  men.  In  the  churches,  prayers  were 
continually  offered  for  the  maintenance  and  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  and  the  safety  and  triumph  of  the 
armies  defending  it.  Great  moneyed  corporations 
proffered  loans  to  the  impoverished  National  Govern- 
ment. State  Legislatures  and  capitalists  subscribed 
vast  sums  of  money  for  the  same  purpose,  and  to 
provide  for  the  families  of  those  who  had  gone  to  the 
war.  In  the  streets,  in  the  houses  of  the  people,  and 
in  every  place  of  public  amusement  war-songs  were 
sung,  war-cries  were  shouted,  and  the  popular  idol  of 
the  hour  was  the  volunteer  bound  for  the  devious 
verge  of  battle  to  be  fought.  Senators,  members  of 
Congress,  civilians  of  prominence  in  the  nation,  and 
men  who  could  not  possibly  have  been  expected  to 
enlist  in  the  war,  pressed  to  Washington,  pleading  for 
some  opportunity  to  serve  the  Government.  Arms 
for  this  great  multitude  were  not  readily  obtainable, 


264  Abraham  Lincoln 

and  the  State  which,  like  Massachusetts,  had  been 
ready  betimes,  occupied  an  enviable  position  among 
its  sister  States. 

Just  before  the  gun  was  fired  on  Sumter,  Lincoln 
was  seeing  his  darkest  days.  He  was  profoundly  de- 
pressed. While  he  yet  retained  his  abiding  faith  in 
the  loyal  people,  he  was,  nevertheless,  somewhat 
influenced  by  the  croakings  and  the  lamentations  of 
some  of  those  who  were  around  him  and  who  were 
despondent  over  the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  In 
the  midst  of  this  gloom,  while  doubt  and  uncertainty 
hung  like  a  mist  over  the  nation,  obscuring  cheerful 
sights  and  magnifying  shadows,  the  voice  of  a  mighty 
people,  as  the  voice  of  one  man,  burst  upon  the  ear  of 
the  melancholy  President.  A  great  and  free  people, 
determined  that  the  slaveholders'  rebellion  should 
be  crushed,  encouraged  and  stimulated  the  President 
of  the  Republic.  The  tread  of  hundreds  of  thousands 
of  feet  resounded  along  the  highways  and  byways  of 
the  North.  It  was  the  tread  of  the  mighty  army 
that  should  never  retire  until  the  country  was  saved 
from  disunion  and  the  flag  had  been  restored  to  the 
staff  from  which  it  had  been  lowered  in  disgrace. 

Great  intensity  was  added  to  this  feeling  when  one 
of  the  regiments  marching  to  the  relief  of  Washington 
was  fired  upon  by  a  secession  mob  in  Baltimore. 
This  was  the  6th  Massachusetts  regiment,  the  first 
to  be  despatched  to  the  national  capital.  The  march 
of  this  fine  body  of  men  was  a  novel  and  startling 
event  in  the  history  of  the  country.  Everywhere  it 
provoked  a  fresh  burst  of  patriotism.  Its  route  to 
the  borders  of  the  free  States  was  one  line  of  glorious 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  265 

welcome  and  cheer.  Women  thronged  to  the  railway 
trains  bearing  these  young  heroes,  offering  gifts  and 
refreshments,  and  vast  crowds  greeted  them  with 
flags,  music,  and  words  of  hearty  encouragement. 
The  sight  and  the  news  of  their  march  awoke  thou- 
sands of  other  young  men  to  dreams  of  mighty  deeds, 
and  another  impetus  was  given  to  the  volunteering 
movement  all  over  the  land.  The  march  of  this  com- 
pact body  of  men  through  the  great  metropolitan 
city  of  New  York  was  an  event  long  to  be  remem- 
bered by  those  who  beheld  it.  The  merchant  forsook 
his  ledger  and  the  workman  his  bench  to  look  upon 
the  wonderful  spectacle  of  a  regiment  of  fighting  men 
on  the  way  to  the  front  of  battle.  Tidings  of  its 
coming  awoke  the  rough  and  traitorous  element  of 
the  population  of  Baltimore,  the  same  city  which 
had  threatened  the  life  of  Lincoln  when  he  was  en 
route  for  the  national  capital.  A  mob,  carrying  a 
Rebel  flag  and  hurriedly  armed,  attacked  the  regiment 
in  transit,  and,  on  the  nineteenth  of  April,  several 
members  of  the  6th  Massachusetts  were  killed  in 
the  streets  of  that  city.  Others  were  wounded,  and 
the  city  was  in  an  uproar,  the  more  conspicuous  por- 
tion of  the  people  declaring  that  further  passage  of 
troops  was  not  to  be  permitted. 

This  event  produced  a  prodigious  sensation 
throughout  the  whole  land.  In  the  North,  the  feel- 
ing was  one  of  burning  indignation.  In  the  South, 
there  was  great  rejoicing.  The  deluded  Rebels  saw 
in  the  affair  confirmation  of  their  belief  that  no  loyal 
troops  would  be  allowed  to  pass  over  the  soil  of  a 
border  State  to  the  defence  of  the  capital.  Maryland 


266  Abraham  Lincoln 

was  a  slaveholding  State.  In  the  recent  election 
for  President,  Lincoln  had  been  given  only  about 
two  thousand  votes  of  its  ninety-two  thousand  cast 
for  the  various  candidates.  Mr.  Hicks,  the  Governor 
of  the  State,  was  thoroughly  frightened,  and  he  im- 
plored the  President  that  no  more  troops  should  be 
permitted  to  pass  through  Baltimore.  He  would 
not  be  answerable  for  the  consequences.  He  even 
suggested  that  the  "dispute"  between  the  North  and 
South  should  be  referred  to  the  British  Minister  in 
Washington,  Lord  Lyons,  for  arbitration.  As  to 
the  bringing  of  troops  through  Baltimore,  Lincoln 
said  that  he  did  not  insist  on  that,  if  it  could  be 
avoided,  and  he  left  the  matter  to  General  Scott,  who 
had  said  that  men  could  be  carried  around  the  city, 
and  all  possibility  of  a  collision  avoided,  unless  the 
citizens  sought  occasion  for  a  quarrel.  As  for  the 
proposition  to  submit  the  matters  in  dispute  to  arbi- 
tration, Lincoln,  with  his  usual  wisdom,  referred 
Governor  Hicks  to  the  Secretary  of  State.  In  an 
admirable  reply  to  the  Governor,  Secretary  Seward, 
referring  to  the  burning  of  the  capital  of  Maryland 
by  the  British,  in  the  war  of  1812,  said  that  "there 
had  been  a  time  when  a  general  of  the  American 
Union,  with  forces  designed  for  the  defence  of  its 
capital,  was  not  unwelcome  anywhere  in  Maryland" ; 
and  he  added  that  "if  all  the  other  nobler  sentiments 
of  Maryland  had  been  obliterated,  one,  at  least,  it 
was  hoped  would  remain,  and  that  was  that  no  do- 
mestic contention  should  be  referred  to  any  foreign 
arbitrament,  least  of  all  to  that  of  a  European 
monarchy." 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  267 

The  attack  on  the  6th  Massachusetts  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  destruction  of  the  bridges  that  connect 
Baltimore  with  the  Northern  and  Western  States. 
For  a  time,  railway  communication  with  the  national 
capital  was  interrupted  and  the  danger  to  that  city 
was  for  a  time  heightened.  Its  sole  defence,  during 
those  days  of  peril,  was  a  small  but  loyal  body  of 
volunteer  troops  under  the  command  of  Colonel 
Charles  P.  Stone,  an  officer  who  had  rendered  the 
country  most  valuable  service  in  detecting  and  dis- 
arming a  conspiracy  headed  by  men  who  subse- 
quently fled  into  the  Rebel  Confederacy.  This  con- 
spiracy had  for  its  object  the  seizure  of  the  capital 
and  the  public  property.  The  railways  being  de- 
stroyed, troops  were  compelled  to  go  around  Balti- 
more by  sea.  In  spite  of  the  protests  of  Governor 
Hicks,  General  B.  F.  Butler,  commanding  the 
Massachusetts  regiments  and  the  7th  New  York, 
took  his  men  to  Annapolis,  the  capital  of  Maryland, 
by  water,  and  thence  sent  them  to  the  defence  of 
Washington.  One  dark  and  stormy  night,  General 
Butler  marched  into  Baltimore,  seized  and  occupied 
Federal  Hill,  a  fortified  position  commanding  the 
city.  The  Rebels  were  overawed.  Many  of  them 
were  arrested  and  lodged  in  jail;  others  fled  into 
the  Confederacy.  The  conspiracy  was  broken  up, 
and  thenceforward  Union  troops  went  unmolested 
through  Baltimore.  In  due  time,  the  loyal  elements 
of  the  population  of  the  State  asserted  themselves, 
and  Maryland,  true  to  the  Union,  refused  to  pass  any 
act  of  hostility  to  the  Government,  and  furnished 
thousands  of  troops,  subsequently,  for  the  defence 


268  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  the  integrity  of  the  Republic.  During  the  war, 
Governor  Hicks,  his  term  of  office  having  expired, 
was  elected  to  the  United  States  Senate,  and  there 
served  his  country  faithfully  until  his  death. 

Another  remarkable  event  that  marked  the  recog- 
nition of  a  state  of  war  was  a  proclamation  issued  by 
President  Lincoln,  April  19,  1861,  declaring  the  ports 
of  Texas,  Louisiana,  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Georgia, 
Florida,  and  South  Carolina  in  a  state  of  blockade 
and  closed  against  the  commerce  of  the  world.  A 
week  later,  Virginia  and  North  Carolina  having  been 
swept  into  the  whirlpool  of  secession  by  the  arts  of 
the  Rebel  leaders,  the  ports  of  those  two  common- 
wealths were  added  to  the  list  of  blockaded  points 
by  a  supplementary  proclamation  by  the  President. 
Another  call  for  troops  was  issued  by  President  Lin- 
coln, May  3,  1861,  thirty-nine  regiments  of  infantry 
and  one  regiment  of  cavalry  being  asked  for ;  and  at 
the  same  time  eighteen  thousand  volunteer  seamen 
were  called  for.  The  President  also  directed  a  con- 
siderable increase  of  the  regular  army,  bringing  the 
maximum  efficiency  of  the  force  up  to  22,714  men. 
The  war  had  fairly  begun.  The  seaports  of  the 
States  that  had  passed  acts  of  secession  were  closed 
to  prevent  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world. 
The  national  capital  was  occupied  by  troops.  Ample 
provision  was  made  for  the  army  and  navy  of  the 
Republic. 

While  the  Virginia  convention  was  in  session,  that 
body  sent  a  delegation  to  wait  upon  President  Lin- 
coln to  ask  him  what  policy  he  intended  to  pursue 
towards  the  so-called  Confederate  States.  We  may 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  269 

suppose  that,  as  the  convention  was  intended  by  the 
Rebel  leaders  to  pass  an  ordinance  of  secession  de- 
claring Virginia  out  of  the  Union,  this  message  to 
Lincoln  was  merely  a  pretext  for  such  action.  Lin- 
coln gave  a  formal  and  written  reply  to  the  request, 
in  which,  after  expressing  his  surprise  and  regret  that 
he  had  not  already  been  sufficiently  understood,  he 
said  that  his  policy  had  been  outlined  very  fully  and 
clearly,  as  he  thought,  in  his  inaugural  address.  And 
he  added:  "As  I  then  and  therein  said,  the  power 
confided  in  me  will  be  used  to  hold,  occupy,  and 
possess  property  and  places  belonging  to  the  Govern- 
ment and  to  collect  duties  and  imposts ;  but  beyond 
what  is  necessary  for  these  objects,  there  will  be  no 
invasion,  no  using  of  force  against  or  among  people 
anywhere."  Furthermore,  he  declared  that  it  was 
his  purpose  to  repossess  Fort  Sumter  and  all  other 
places  seized  and  taken  from  the  Government,  and 
he  would  meet  force  with  force,  so  far  as  that  was 
needed  to  accomplish  that  purpose.  In  consequence 
of  the  seizure  of  Fort  Sumter,  he  said,  it  might  be 
found  needful  to  withdraw  the  service  of  the  United 
States  mails  from  the  States  that  pretended  to  have 
seceded  from  the  Union.  He  closed  by  saying  that 
he  would  not  attempt  to  collect  the  revenues  by 
armed  invasion  of  any  part  of  the  country;  his  ob- 
vious meaning  being  that  force  would  only  be  used 
to  recapture  military  posts  seized  by  the  Rebels. 

This  was  certainly  clear  enough  for  any  candid 
person's  understanding.  Lincoln's  policy,  again  and 
again  declared,  was  to  defend  the  public  property. 
If  force  was  employed  to  seize  it,  he  must  use  force 


270  Abraham  Lincoln 

to  retake  it  or  to  defend  it  against  all  comers.  Up 
to  that  time,  as  will  be  noticed,  the  mails  had  been 
carried  through  all  the  States  under  the  direction  of 
a  Postmaster-General  appointed  by  President  Lin- 
coln, just  as  though  nothing  had  happened  to 
disturb  the  relations  existing  between  the  so-called 
Confederate  States  and  the  National  Government. 
Lincoln  clung  with  great  patience  to  the  notion,  en- 
tertained by  many,  that  the  rebellious  States  might 
be  won  back  to  their  allegiance,  and,  even  if  he 
did  not  really  expect  that  happy  issue  of  all  these 
troubles,  he  was  determined  to  do  nothing  that 
should  make  it  difficult  or  impossible.  The  Rebel 
leaders  were  burning  to  begin  an  aggressive  war. 
The  President  was  anxious  to  have  no  step  taken, 
under  authority  of  the  Government,  that  should  have 
the  effect  of  provoking  war.  The  Rebels  longed  for 
an  excuse  to  begin  fighting.  Lincoln  was  determined 
to  do  nothing  except  what  was  absolutely  necessary 
to  maintain  the  rights  and  dignities  of  the  United 
States  Government. 

It  was  all  in  vain.  The  reply  of  Lincoln  to  the 
Virginia  delegates  fell  on  unheeding  ears.  By  a  vote 
of  eighty-eight  to  fifty-five  that  State  "went  out  of 
the  Union,"  as  the  current  phrase  was,  and  Virginia 
was  made  thereafter  the  main  battle-field  of  the  war. 
Richmond,  the  capital  of  the  State,  became  the 
capital  of  the  Confederacy,  the  offices  of  that  organi- 
zation being  moved  from  Montgomery,  Alabama,  to 
the  city.  The  vote  was  taken  on  the  iyth  of  April, 
and  the  Confederate  capital  was  transferred  on  the 
2ist  of  the  following  month.  Meanwhile,  the  Rebels 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  271 

had  seized  Harper's  Ferry,  Virginia,  an  important 
strategic  point  on  the  border  of  the  State,  well 
stocked  with  arms  and  materials  for  their  manufac- 
ture; also  Gosport  Navy  Yard,  near  Norfolk,  Vir- 
ginia. Both  of  these  points  were  of  great  value  to 
the  Rebels.  The  navy  yard  was  the  depot  of  stores 
and  property — guns,  ships,  ammunition,  and  vari- 
ous naval  equipments — valued  at  eight  or  ten  mil- 
lions of  dollars.  It  had  been  left  defenceless  by  the 
treachery  of  former  members  of  the  National  Govern- 
ment; additional  treachery  and  treason  threw  it 
into  the  hands  of  the  Rebels.  With  Harper's  Ferry, 
its  arsenal  and  its  military  supplies,  and  the  Gosport 
Navy  Yard  and  its  ships  and  naval  stores  in  their 
hands,  although  damaged  by  fire,  the  boastful  Rebels 
now  believed  themselves  invincible.  They  promised 
to  hoist  their  flag  on  the  Capitol  at  Washington ; 
"perhaps  on  Faneuil  Hall,  in  Boston,"  said  some  of 
the  more  sanguine  of  the  leaders. 

Early  in  the  momentous  summer  of  1861,  there 
occurred  two  deaths  that  came  very  near  to  Lincoln. 
Among  those  who  had  accompanied  the  President- 
elect on  his  journey  from  Illinois  to  the  national 
capital  was  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth,  a  young  man  who 
had  been  employed  in  the  law  office  of  Lincoln  & 
Herndon,  Springfield.  He  was  a  brave,  handsome, 
and  impetuous  youth,  and  was  among  the  first  to 
offer  his  services  to  the  President  in  defence  of  the 
Union,  as  soon  as  the  mutterings  of  war  were  heard. 
Before  the  war,  he  had  organized  a  company  of 
zouaves  from  the  Chicago  firemen,  and  had  de- 
lighted and  astonished  many  people  by  the  exhibi- 


272  Abraham  Lincoln 

tions  of  their  skill  in  the  evolutions  through  which 
they  were  put  while  visiting  some  of  the  chief  cities 
of  the  Republic.  Now,  being  commissioned  a  second 
lieutenant  in  the  United  States  army,  he  went  to 
New  York  and  organized  a  similar  regiment,  known 
as  the  nth  New  York,  from  the  firemen  of  that 
city.  Colonel  Ellsworth's  Zouaves,  on  the  evening 
of  May  23d,  were  sent  with  a  considerable  force  to 
occupy  the  heights  overlooking  Washington  and 
Alexandria,  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac,  opposite 
the  national  capital.  Next  day,  seeing  a  Rebel  flag 
flying  from  the  Marshall  House,  a  tavern  in  Alexan- 
dria, kept  by  a  secessionist,  he  went  up  through  the 
building  to  the  roof  and  pulled  it  down.  While, on 
his  way  down  the  stairs,  with  the  flag  in  his  arms,  he 
was  met  by  the  tavern-keeper,  who  shot  and  killed 
him  instantly.  Ellsworth  fell,  dyeing  the  Rebel  flag 
with  the  blood  that  gushed  from  his  heart.  The 
tavern-keeper  was  instantly  killed  by  a  shot  from 
private  Brownell,  of  the  Ellsworth  Zouaves,  who  was 
at  hand  when  his  commander  fell.  The  death  of 
Ellsworth,  needless  though  it  may  have  been,  caused 
a  profound  sensation  throughout  the  country,  where 
he  was  well  known.  He  was  among  the  very  first 
martyrs  of  the  war,  as  he  had  been  one  of  the  first 
volunteers.  Lincoln  was  overwhelmed  with  sorrow. 
He  had  the  body  of  the  lamented  young  officer  taken 
to  the  White  House,  where  it  lay  in  state  until  the 
burial  took  place,  and,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  in- 
creasing cares,  he  found  time  to  sit  alone  and  in 
grief -stricken  meditation  by  the  bier  of  the  dead 
young  soldier  of  whose  career  he  had-  cherished  so 


President  Abraham  Lincoln  273 

great  hopes.  The  life-blood  from  Ellsworth's  heart 
had  stained  not  only  the  Rebel  flag,  but  a  gold  medal 
found  under  his  uniform,  bearing  the  legend  "Non 
solum  nobis,  sed  pro  patria' ' — ' '  Not  for  ourselves  alone, 
but  for  the  country." 

On  the  third  of  June  died  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas, 
after  a  few  days  of  illness.  On  the  fourteenth  of 
April,  in  company  with  a  friend,  he  had  called  upon 
Lincoln  at  the  White  House,  to  offer  his  sympathy 
and  advice.  The  country  was  ablaze  with  excite- 
ment. Fort  Sumter  had  been  fired  on,  and,  even  as 
these  two  eminent  men  sat  together  in  council 
— Lincoln  and  Douglas,  former  foes  in  politics,  now 
united  in  a  common  purpose — the  tramp  of  armed 
men,  on  the  way  to  the  front,  was  beginning  to  be 
heard.  Douglas  warmly,  and  even  affectionately, 
commended  the  course  pursued  by  Lincoln  up  to 
that  time,  although  he  said  he  would  have  called  for 
two  hundred  thousand  men  instead  of  seventy-five 
thousand  if  he  were  in  the  President's  place.  Warmed 
by  his  unmistakable  devotion  to  his  country,  Douglas 
enlarged  upon  the  theme  and  gave  Lincoln  many 
suggestions  of  practical  value.  After  the  interview 
had  closed  and  Douglas  had  departed,  the  gentlemen 
with  him  asked  that  the  details  of  the  notable  meet- 
ing be  sketched  in  the  form  of  a  despatch  and  given 
to  the  country,  in  the  belief  that  the  loyal  sentiment 
would  be  thereby  strengthened.  This  was  done,  and 
the  despatch,  having  been  read  and  approved  by 
Douglas,  was  transmitted  through  the  Associated 
Press  agency  at  Washington,  with  precisely  the 
effect  upon  the  people  that  was  expected  of  it.  Dur- 


18. 


274  Abraham  Lincoln 

ing  the  following  month,  Douglas  addressed  large 
meetings  of  Union  men  in  Ohio  and  Illinois,  urging 
such  measures  as  would  strengthen  the  hands  of 
those  who  were  carrying  on  the  government  of  the 
Republic.  Towards  the  latter  part  of  May  he  sick- 
ened, and  died,  as  before  said,  June  3d,  greatly 
lamented  by  his  fellow-countrymen,  among  whom 
the  sad-hearted  Lincoln  mourned  with  a  great  and 
exceeding  sorrow. 


CHAPTER  XX. 

BEGINNING   OF   THE    GREAT    STRUGGLE. 

The  Combatants  Face  to  Face — The  First  Battle  of  Bull  Run — The 
Sting  of  Defeat — George  B.  McClellan — Effect  of  the  Great  Disas- 
ter— A  Message  to  Congress — Men  and  Money  Voted — How  For- 
eign Nations  Regarded  the  Struggle — Seizure  and  Release  of 
Mason  and  Slidcll. 

A  T  last,  then,  freedom  and  union,  for  which  Lincoln 
•**  had  so  long  and  so  zealously  contended,  stood 
to  defend  itself  against  slavery  and  disunion.  The 
arena  was  transferred  from  the  West  to  the  wider 
plane  of  the  Republic.  Jefferson  Davis,  a  man  of 
high  culture,  educated  at  the  Military  Academy  of 
the  United  States,  familiar  with  high  politics  and 
conversant  with  persons  of  social  dignity,  himself  an 
aristocrat,  was  now  pitted  against  the  man  who  had 
been  born  in  the  obscurity  of  the  American  back- 
woods, reared  in  a  life  of  poverty  and  privation,  edu- 
cated by  dint  of  hard  struggles  and  under  unfriendly 
circumstances,  and  coming  late  into  the  possession 
of  those  advantages,  social  and  mental,  which  are 
denied  to  the  children  of  adversity.  Davis  and  his 
followers  had  set  up  the  plea  that  a  State  was  sover- 
eign, that  the  Union  was  subject  to  the  State,  and 
that  the  rights  of  any  single  State  were  paramount 
to  all  others  that  could  be  considered  by  the  citizens 
thereof.  Lincoln,  on  the  other  hand,  had  always 


276  Abraham  Lincoln 

insisted  that  the  nation,  composed  of  the  people  of 
the  several  States,  was  the  paramount  authority. 
He  held  that  no  State  could  leave  the  Union,  and, 
by  so  leaving,  break  it  up  and  dissolve  the  bond, 
without  being  committed  thereby  to  an  act  of  treason. 
One  of  his  familiar  illustrations  of  this  his  position 
was  that  as  a  county,  a  political  subdivision  of  a 
State,  could  not  lawfully  leave  that  State,  so  an  indi- 
vidual State  could  not  lawfully  leave  the  Republic  of 
States,  thereby  coercing  a  dissolution  of  that  Repub- 
lic. What  Davis  would  have  done,  if,  after  the  so- 
called  Confederacy  had  been  established,  some  one 
State  should  have  seceded  from  it,  was  never  clearly 
understood.  This  advocate  of  State  rights  never 
had  a  good  opportunity  of  showing  how  he  would 
have  wrestled  with  that  problem. 

When  these  two  hostile  camps,  freedom  and 
slavery,  were  pitched  against  each  other,  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1 86 1,  the  population  of  the  States  in  rebellion 
was  9,103,333,  of  which  more  than  one  third  were 
slaves.  The  population  of  the  loyal  and  free  States 
was  22,046,472.  This  disparity  in  the  number  liable 
to  be  drawn  into  battle  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
Rebel  leaders,  and  it  excited  the  alarm  of  some  of 
those  who  were  likely  to  be  called  on  to  fight  for  the 
Confederacy.  These  timorous  persons  were  cheered 
by  the  common  remark  that  one  Southern  man  was 
equal  to  at  least  five  "Yankees"  of  the  North,  a  say- 
ing that  undoubtedly  helped  many  young  and  inex- 
perienced recruits  to  bear  the  early  burdens  of  the 
Civil  War,  as  the  Rebel  army  was  formed.  When 
some  of  these,  later  on,  were  captured  and  taken 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        277 

north,  they  saw  with  amazement  the  crowds  that 
filled  the  large  cities,  just  as  though  other  thousands 
of  men  were  not  absent  fighting  the  battles  of  the 
Union.  They  felt  and  said  that  they  had  been  im- 
posed upon,  and  that  the  number  of  men  of  the  loyal 
States,  fit  for  duty,  was  so  enormously  greater  than 
that  of  the  South  that  their  cause  was  hopeless  from 
the  first. 

The  slaves  of  the  South  were  thought  by  the  people 
of  that  region  to  be  an  element  of  strength.  The 
slaveholders  relied  on  the  faithful  attachment  of 
these  unfortunate  creatures,  a  reliance  that  was 
seldom  misplaced.  The  slaves  had  once  been  taught 
that  the  "Abolitionists"  were  a  species  of  monsters 
that  infested  the  North  and  devoured  escaped  black 
people.  And,  so  long  as  they  had  food  and  protec- 
tion from  their  masters,  the  bondmen  did  not  leave 
their  masters,  even  when  the  war  began.  They  were 
useful  in  making  preparations  for  battles,  marches, 
and  sieges.  They  were  teamsters,  workmen  on  forts, 
and  diggers  of  intrenchments.  In  the  eyes  of  all  the 
people,  North  and  South,  the  slaves  were  still  prop- 
erty. And  it  was  the  custom  of  most  officers  of  the 
United  States  army  to  give  up  the  few  fugitive  ne- 
groes that  came  into  their  lines.  Gen.  B.  F.  Butler, 
however,  while  in  command  at  Fortress  Monroe,  Vir- 
ginia, perceived  that  the  slaves  were  used  by  the 
Rebels  precisely  as  horses  or  mules  would  have  been ; 
they  were  employed  in  promoting  the  efficiency  of  the 
Rebel  military  works.  Accordingly,  when  slaves 
came  into  his  lines,  he  refused  to  give  them  up, 
declaring  that,  like  war  material,  they  were  "contra- 


278  Abraham  Lincoln 

band  of  war."  This  was  a  new  idea,  and  from  that 
time  the  African  slave  inside  of  the  Union  lines  was 
known  as  a  contraband.  The  word  not  only  gave  a 
new  name  to  the  escaping  slave,  but  it  suggested  a 
line  of  policy  that  afterwards  troubled  greatly  the 
warlike  slaveholders  and  the  Rebel  leaders.  They 
had  no  longer  any  power  to  enforce  the  law  concern- 
ing fugitive  slaves,  about  which  they  had  once  been 
much  concerned. 

The  battle  of  Bull  Run,  begun  on  the  nineteenth 
of  July  and  ended  on  the  twenty-first,  was  a  great 
defeat  to  the  Union  forces,  although  the  losses  on 
each  side  were  not  far  from  equal.  But  it  was  the 
first  real  advance  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  which 
had  been  accumulating  on  the  soil  of  Virginia  and 
around  Washington.  Both  sides  had  been  making 
large  and  hurried  preparations  for  this  fight,  and  the 
newspapers  of  the  North  had  been  clamorous  for  an 
advance  upon  the  Rebel  capital  by  the  Union  troops. 
The  Rebels  had  been  more  and  more  defiant,  con- 
fident, and  threatening.  They  had  withdrawn  their 
forces  from  Harper's  Ferry,  taking  with  them  what 
war  material  had  been  spared  by  the  flames,  and  were 
now  concentrating  for  an  attack  on  the  Federal  cap- 
ital, or,  as  they  expressed  it,  to  repel  the  invader. 
The  first  call  of  troops  issued  by  Lincoln  was  for  men 
to  serve  for  three  months,  and  the  time  of  some  of 
these  was  now  about  to  expire.  The  first  flush  of 
their  military  enthusiasm  had  passed.  They  were 
still  raw  and  undisciplined.  Indeed,  so  far  as  the 
rank  and  file  were  concerned,  they  knew  nothing 
whatever  of  the  stern  realities  of  war,  and  they  were 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        279 

impatient  of  military  discipline.  Many  of  the 
officers  were  lately  from  civil  life  and  were  unfamiliar 
with  their  duties.  And  the  people  at  home,  equally 
inexperienced,  but  more  impatient,  demanded  that 
the  army  should  do  something  to  justify  its  existence 
and  its  cost. 

Lincoln  viewed  the  situation  with  great  anxiety. 
He  knew  that  the  army,  portentous  as  it  appeared, 
was  not  in  a  condition  to  risk  a  great  battle ;  and  yet 
it  might  be  attacked  any  day.  He  was  excessively 
desirous  of  meeting  the  expectations  of  the  people, 
without  whose  hearty  cooperation  no  forces  could  be 
maintained.  The  Union  troops  held  Fortress  Mon- 
roe and  the  region  round  about,  a  defeat  at  Big 
Bethel,  which  happened  on  the  tenth  of  June,  having 
been  incurred  while  the  troops  at  that  point  were 
endeavoring  to  extend  our  lines.  They  also  guarded 
Baltimore  and  its  approaches,  and  were  driving  the 
Rebels  from  the  western  part  of  Virginia,  under  Gen. 
Geo.  B.  McClellan,  a  very  capable  young  officer  of 
the  regular  army.  It  seemed  imperatively  needful, 
whatever  were  the  objections  and  the  dangers,  that 
an  advance  should  be  made  in  Virginia. 

On  the  other  side,  there  was  much  boasting  and 
confidence.  Although  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Rebel 
army  were  as  raw  and  untrained  as  ours,  they  were 
officered  by  men  who  had  been  professionally  edu- 
cated to  the  military  service,  among  them  being 
Generals  Johnston,  Beauregard,  Stonewall  Jackson, 
Longstreet,  Kirby  Smith,  Ewell,  Jubal  Early,  Lee, 
Holmes,  Evans,  Elzey,  Jordan,  and  others  of  less 
note.  They  were  commanded  by  Gen.  Beauregard, 


280  Abraham  Lincoln 

who  was  subsequently  joined  by  Gen.  Joseph  E. 
Johnston.  The  two  commands  thus  consolidated 
numbered  18,000  of  the  rank  and  file,  with  forty-four 
guns.  The  Union  forces  were  commanded  by  Gen. 
Irvin  McDowell,  and  numbered  17,676  of  the  rank 
and  file,  with  twenty-four  guns.  Gen.  Patterson,  in 
command  of  a  contingent  of  Union  forces,  was  ex- 
pected to  hold  in  check  the  troops  under  Johnston, 
who  was  at  Winchester,  on  the  left  of  the  Rebel  line, 
their  right  being  at  Manassas,  under  Beauregard. 
At  first,  the  attack  of  the  Union  forces  was  successful, 
but  the  tide  turned  in  favor  of  the  Rebels.  The  ar- 
rangements for  the  supplying  of  McDowell's  men 
were  imperfect ;  Patterson  did  not  hold  Johnston  in 
check,  and  the  first  weakening  of  the  Union  lines 
became  a  rout.  The  troops  broke  and  fled  in  the 
wildest  confusion,  some  of  them  abandoning  their 
arms  in  their  flight,  but  many  marching  off  the  field 
in  good  order.  In  a  few  hours,  the  great  army  upon 
which  Lincoln  had  rested  so  many  hopes,  and  of 
which  the  people  expected  such  great  things,  was 
pouring  into  Washington  over  the  bridges  of  the 
Potomac  and  filling  the  capital  with  most  exag- 
gerated and  alarming  stories  of  defeat.  Many 
civilians,  members  of  Congress,  and  visitors,  had 
gone  out  to  see  the  fight.  These,  in  their  reckless 
haste  to  reach  a  place  of  safety,  added  to  the  panic 
and  confusion.  An  overturned  carriage  in  the  way 
caused  a  block  of  the  retreat  on  that  line,  and  terror 
almost  ludicrous  seized  upon  the  fugitives.  But  the 
Rebels,  not  knowing  their  own  advantage,  did  not 
pursue,  and  Washington,  then  at  their  mercy,  was 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        281 

left  unattacked.  The  panic  on  the  Union  side  of  the 
lines  was  no  stranger  than  the  ignorance  that  pre- 
vailed on  the  other. 

The  Rebels,  complete  though  their  means  of  secur- 
ing information  was  supposed  to  be,  believed  that 
they  were  opposed  by  at  least  50,000  men,  as  reports 
of  their  commanding  generals  subsequently  showed. 
The  Union  loss  in  this  memorable  defeat  was  460 
killed,  1124  wounded,  and  1312  captured  or  missing, 
being  a  total  of  2896.  The  Rebel  loss  in  killed  was 
387,  in  wounded  1582,  and  13  captured  or  missing, 
being  a  total  of  1982.  The  difference  in  the  return 
of  "captured  or  missing,"  comparing  the  Union  and 
the  Rebel  figures,  is  suggestive.  It  was  facetiously 
said  that  some  of  the  Union  soldiers  were  so  "de- 
moralized" that  they  never  ceased  running  until  they 
reached  their  own  homes .  Certain  it  is  that  more  than 
one  regiment  whose  time  was  out  shouldered  arms  and 
marched  off  the  field  before  the  fight  was  fairly  begun. 

The  effect  of  the  disaster  upon  the  loyal  people 
was  not  unlike  that  of  the  firing  of  the  first  gun  on 
Sumter.  It  is  difficult  to  determine  whether  wrath 
or  mortification  was  the  more  prominent  throughout 
the  North,  at  this  time.  It  was  mortifying  to  the 
national  pride  that  the  first  considerable  battle  had 
gone  against  the  defenders  of  the  Union;  but  the 
very  danger  of  the  situation  only  inspired  the  loyal 
people  to  renewed  activity.  The  rush  of  volunteers 
was  unprecedented.  Popular  indignation  somewhat 
recklessly  expended  itself  on  the  alleged  incompe- 
tence of  military  commanders  and  advisers,  as  well 
as  on  the  Rebels.  Some  of  those  who  had  clamored 


282  Abraham  Lincoln 

for  an  advance  forgot  that  they  had  incited  what  was 
now  thought  to  be  a  premature  and  ill-advised  move- 
ment, and  insisted  that  the  blame  lay  with  those  who 
had  conducted  the  ill-starred  advance  upon  the 
Rebel  lines.  But  public  opinion,  although  fickle  and 
unjust  towards  some  of  the  able  and  devoted  mili- 
tary men  engaged  in  the  battle  of  Bull  Run,  did  not 
slacken  in  the  direction  of  the  real  defence  of  the 
Union.  The  disaster  dismayed  for  a  time  the  people, 
and  it  greatly  encouraged  the  Rebels  and  their  sym- 
pathizers in  the  North;  but  more  troops  and  more 
military  material  were  eagerly  furnished,  and  the 
tide  of  determined  patriotism  rose  even  higher  than 
ever  before. 

Upon  Lincoln  the  effect  of  the  Bull  Run  defeat  was 
most  depressing.  It  was  well  for  him  that  he  had  an 
unshakable  faith  in  the  sturdy  patriotism  and  the 
hearty  support  of  the  people.  Even  in  the  midst  of 
his  sorrows,  he  felt  that  the  nation  would  rally,  as  it 
subsequently  did,  to  the  defence  of  the  national  in- 
tegrity. He  lamented,  with  a  bitterness  that  none 
but  those  who  knew  his  gentle  and  kind  heart  could 
understand,  the  needless  sacrifice  of  human  life; 
for,  unaccustomed  as  the  people  then  were  to  war 
and  its  deadliness,  the  list  of  killed  at  Bull  Run 
seemed  most  dreadful  and  gory.  But  most  of  all  he 
feared  the  effect  of  this  their  first  success  upon  the 
minds  of  the  Rebels  of  the  South.  He  was  hoping, 
always  hoping,  that  the  Southern  people  might  yet 
see  the  error  of  their  ways  and  return  to  the  fold  of 
the  Union.  Their  elation  over  the  defeat  of  the 
Federal  troops,  he  knew,  put  further  off  than  ever  all 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        283 

prospect  of  this  greatly  desired  object  of  his  prayers. 
But  even  then,  doubtless,  there  were  some  among 
the  friends  and  advisers  of  Lincoln  who  thought  they 
saw  in  this  defeat  some  grains  of  consolation.  If  the 
war  were  to  be  ended  then  and  there,  slavery  would 
be  saved  alive;  a  long  war  would  certainly  kill  the 
cursed  institution  that  had  caused  the  war. 

One  or  two  naval  and  military  expeditions  were 
fitted  out  at  once.  Fort  Hatteras,  on  the  coast  of 
North  Carolina,  was  captured  from  the  Rebels  by  one 
of  these,  and  later,  Port  Royal,  South  Carolina,  was 
surrendered  to  the  Union  forces.  In  the  meanwhile, 
General  McClellan  had  driven  the  Rebels  out  of  that 
part  of  the  State  of  Virginia  that  lies  west  of  the  Blue 
Ridge,  and  the  inhabitants,  mo^t  of  whom  had  been 
loyal  to  the  Union,  repudiated  the  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion that  had  been  passed  by  the  Richmond  conven- 
tion, and  organized  a  new  and  independent  State,  to 
be  known  as  West  Virginia,  of  which  Mr.  Francis  H. 
Pierpont  was  the  first  provisional  governor.  Subse- 
quently Congress  ratified  the  act  of  separation  "as  a 
war  measure,"  and  West  Virginia  has  remained  an 
independent  State  unto  this  day. 

Congress  was  in  session  when  the  battle  of  Bull 
Run  was  fought,  having,  as  before  said,  been  called 
together  on  the  fourth  of  July.  By  this  time  the 
country  had  become  somewhat  accustomed  to  the 
idea  that  civil  war  was  necessary  to  preserve  the 
Union.  The  result  justified  Lincoln's  wise  patience. 
He  had  been  expected  by  many  impetuous  persons 
to  call  Congress  together  as  soon  as  Sumter  was  fired 
upon.  He  had  waited  for  further  developments, 


284  Abraham  Lincoln 

although  he  was  besought  by  some  of  his  immediate 
friends  to  convene  Congress  at  once.  His  message 
to  Congress  was  a  calm  and  almost  colorless  history 
of  the  struggle,  up  to  that  date.  After  reciting  the 
events  that  had  taken  place,  he  declared  that  the 
Rebels  had  forced  the  issue  of  war  or  dissolution  of 
the  Union,  and  that  this  issue 

"  embraced  more  than  the  fate  of  these  United  States.  It 
presents  to  the  whole  family  of  man  the  question  whether 
a  constitutional  republic  or  democracy — a  government  of 
the  people  by  the  same  people — can  or  cannot  maintain 
its  territorial  integrity,  against  its  own  domestic  foes.  It 
presents  the  question  whether  discontented  individuals, 
too  few  in  numbers  to  control  administration  according  to 
organic  law  in  any  case,  can  always,  upon  the  pretences 
made  in  this  case,  or  on  any  other  pretences,  or  arbitrarily, 
without  any  pretence,  break  up  their  government,  and 
thus  practically  put  an  end  to  free  government  upon  the 
earth.  It  forces  us  to  ask, '  Is  there  in  all  republics  this 
inherent  and  fatal  weakness?'  'Must  a  government,  of 
necessity,  be  too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  its  own  people 
or  too  weak  to  maintain  its  own  existence  ? ' ' 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  message,  as  shown 
by  the  above  extract,  Lincoln  was  only  enforcing 
here  just  such  ideas  of  self-government  as,  during  all 
his  life,  he  had  been  so  clearly  expounding  to  the 
people;  and  here,  too,  will  be  seen  the  germ  of  the 
famous  speech  that  he  pronounced  on  the  field  of 
Gettysburg,  years  after,  when  the  war  was  nearly 
over.  Alluding  to  the  attempt  of  some  of  the  border 
States,  notably  Kentucky,  to  maintain  a  system  of 
neutrality,  Lincoln  employed  once  again  a  figure 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        285 

familiar  to  those  who  have  followed  his  course  of 
thought.  He  said  that  the  notion  that  these  border 
States  could  maintain  a  neutral  ground  over  which 
no  armies,  Federal  or  Rebel,  should  be  allowed  to 
pass,  was  not  to  be  entertained  for  a  moment.  This 
would  be 

"  building  an  impassable  wall  along  the  line  of  separation, 
and  yet  not  quite  an  impassable  one,  for,  under  the  guise 
of  neutrality,  it  would  tie  the  hands  of  Union  men,  and 
freely  pass  supplies  from  among  them  to  the  insurrec- 
tionists, which  it  could  not  do  to  an  open  enemy.  At  a 
stroke,  it  would  take  all  the  trouble  off  the  hands  of 
secession,  except  only  what  proceeds  from  external 
blockade." 

This  message  gave  great  satisfaction  to  the  country, 
especially  that  part  which  may  be  considered  as  an 
answer  to  the  artful  and  insidious  plea  made  in  the 
message  of  Jefferson  Davis,  President  of  the  so-called 
Confederate  States.  Davis  had  argued  that  the  right 
of  secession  was  a  right  for  which  American  citizens, 
as  defenders  of  popular  liberty,  were  bound  to  fight, 
if  necessary.  Lincoln  said,  in  the  message  from 
which  we  have  been  quoting,  that  it  was  a  sophism, 
false  reasoning,  to  say  that  a  State  may  peaceably 
get  out  of  the  Union  of  the  States,  pretending  that 
this  getting  out  was  constitutional  and  right. 

"The  sophism,"  he  said,  "is  that  any  State  of  the  Union 
may,  consistently  with  the  national  Constitution,  and 
therefore  lawfully  and  peacefully,  withdraw  from  the 
Union  without  consent  of  the  Union  or  any  other  State. 


286  Abraham  Lincoln 

The  little  disguise,  that  the  supposed  right  is  to  be  ex- 
ercised only  for  just  cause,  themselves  to  be  the  judges  of 
its  justice,  is  too  thin  to  merit  any  notice.  With  rebellion 
thus  sugar-coated  they  have  been  drugging  the  public 
mind  of  their  section  for  more  than  thirty  years,  and  until 
at  length  they  have  brought  many  good  men  to  a  willing- 
ness to  take  up  arms  against  the  Government  the  day  after 
some  assemblage  of  men  has  enacted  the  farcical  pretence 
of  taking  their  State  out  of  the  Union,  who  would  have, 
could  have,  been  brought  to  no  such  thing  the  day  before." 

Nothing  could  be  more  clear  than  the  terms  and 
illustrations  which  Lincoln  employed  in  this  message. 
In  the  sentence  just  quoted,  the  phrase  "sugar- 
coated"  appears.  When  this  caught  the  eye  of  the 
public  printer,  Mr.  Defrees,  who  had  confidential 
relations  with  the  President,  he  ventured  to  say, 
in  answer  to  Lincoln's  question  how  he  liked  the 
message,  that  the  phrase  was  hardly  dignified. 
"Well,  Defrees,"  said  the  President,  with  great  good- 
nature, "if  you  think  the  time,  will  ever  come  when 
the  people  will  not  understand  what  'sugar-coated' 
means,  I  '11  alter  it;  otherwise,  I  think  I  will  let  it 
go."  The  phrase  was  allowed  to  stand,  and  thus  it 
went  to  Congress  and  to  the  world. 

Congress  responded  very  readily  and  liberally  to 
the  requests  of  the  President  for  men  and  money. 
He  asked  for  four  hundred  millions  of  dollars  and 
four  hundred  thousand  men.  Congress  appro- 
priated five  hundred  million  dollars,  and  authorized 
him  to  call  half  a  million  of  troops.  The  nation  was 
now  very  much  in  earnest,  and  had  settled  to  the 
belief  that  the  war  would  be  a  long  one.  Recruiting 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        287 

went  on  very  briskly,  and  the  country  was  alive  with 
the  sounds  of  preparation.  In  every  village  and 
hamlet  in  the  Northern  States  there  were  organized 
societies  to  help  on  the  good  cause.  For  a  time,  at 
least,  it  seemed  as  if  the  people,  men  and  women,  had 
laid  aside  their  usual  amusements  and  employments 
and  had  devoted  themselves  exclusively  to  the  busi- 
ness of  helping  to  put  down  the  rebellion.  The  most 
popular  song  at  that  time  was  that  which  had  for  its 
refrain — 

"  We  're  coming,  Father  Abraham, 
Six  hundred  thousand  strong." 

It  was  a  matter  of  great  concern  to  both  of  the 
combatants,  North  and  South,  that  the  issue  between 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  that  of  the 
Rebel  Confederacy  should  be  considered  by  foreign 
nations  in  a  way  favorable  to  either  one  or  the  other. 
The  National  Government  had  declared  a  blockade  of 
all  the  Southern  ports.  The  Rebels  had  no  navy; 
but  the  National  Government  did  have  a  small  naval 
force,  and  it  was  daily  growing  larger.  Would  other 
nations  recognize  that  such  a  blockade  existed  ?  Or 
would  they  disregard  it  and  sail  their  ships  into  the 
closed  ports  just  as  if  there  were  no  blockade?  If 
the  Rebel  Confederacy  were  recognized  as  a  nation, 
the  United  States  Government  would  be  compelled 
to  prove,  by  a  strong  navy  and  with  an  actual  closing 
of  the  ports,  that  the  blockade  was  effectual.  Other- 
wise the  powers  that  recognized  the  so-called  Con- 
federate States  would  send  their  vessels  into  those 
ports,  supplying  the  Rebels  with  all  they  needed. 


288  Abraham  Lincoln 

President  Lincoln,  very  early  in  the  beginning  of  the 
conflict,  showed  his  anxiety  on  this  point.  But 
soon,  almost  as  soon  as  hostilities  began,  the  govern- 
ments of  England  and  France  recognized  the  Rebel 
Government  as  a  belligerent  power,  with  the  same 
rights  on  sea  and  land  that  it  would  have  had  if  it 
were  an  independent  nation.  This  was  a  severe  blow 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  to  the 
administration. 

While  the  country,  North  and  South,  was  discuss- 
ing what  was  sometimes  called  "the  paper  blockade," 
the  Rebel  Government  sent  to  Europe,  as  envoys, 
James  M.  Mason  and  John  Slidell.  These  men  had 
been  members  of  the  United  States  Senate,  and  had 
left  Washington  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  to  take 
sides  with  their  States.  By  the  Rebel  Government 
Mason  was  sent  to  England  and  Slidell  to  France,  to 
induce,  if  possible,  those  great  powers  to  recognize 
the  Confederacy  as  a  nation.  First  sailing  for  Cuba, 
the  two  envoys  took  passage  on  the  British  packet- 
ship  Trent  for  St.  Thomas,  a  British  port,  intending 
to  sail  thence  for  England.  This  was  on  the  7th  of 
November,  1861.  On  the  following- day,  the  Trent 
was  overhauled  by  the  United  States  man-of-war 
San  Jacinto,  Captain  Wilkes,  who,  having  fired  a 
shot  across  the  bows  of  the  Trent  to  bring  her  to,  sent 
a  boat  alongside  and  took  off  the  two  envoys  and 
their  secretaries  and  carried  them  to  Boston,  where 
they  were  lodged  in  Fort  Warren. 

This  event  created  great  excitement  and  enthu- 
siasm throughout  the  country.  The  action  of  the 
English  and  French  Governments  had  aroused  the 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        289 

wrath  of  the  people,  and  the  capture  was  regarded 
by  many  as  a  threatening  answer  to  those  govern- 
ments. The  people  everywhere  were  filled  with  ani- 
mated joy  over  the  capture  of  the  Rebel  envoys.  The 
demand  of  the  British  Government  that  the  envoys, 
having  been  taken  from  under  the  British  flag,  and 
in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  commander  of  the 
Trent,  should  be  surrendered,  only  inflamed  the 
popular  indignation.  "They  shall  never  be  given 
up!"  was  the  cry  everywhere.  The  Rebels,  on  the 
other  hand,  were  overjoyed  at  the  turn  that  affairs 
had  taken.  They  said  that  there  would  now  be  war 
between  England  and  the  United  States,  and,  in  the 
commotion,  their  Confederacy  would  secure  inde- 
pendence. In  England,  very  few  men,  apparently, 
sympathized  with  the  United  States  in  its  struggle 
to  preserve  the  Union,  and  the  seizure  of  Mason  and 
Slidell  was  regarded  as  a  menace,  an  insult.  The 
London  newspapers  declared  that  the  war  would 
now  be  terrible ;  the  power  of  England  would  be  with 
the  South,  and  the  result  would  be  the  eternal  divi- 
sion of  the  States,  North  and  South. 

None  of  these  things  seemed  to  move  the  people  of 
the  loyal  States.  They  were  determined  that  the 
envoys  should  never  be  surrendered.  Congress 
passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  Captain  Wilkes.  The 
Secretary  of  the  Navy,  Mr.  Gideon  Welles,  wrote  him 
a  letter  congratulating  him  on  "the  great  public  ser- 
vice" he  had  rendered  to  the  country,  and  Mr. 
Stanton,  who  afterwards  replaced  Mr.  Cameron  as 
Secretary  of  War,  cordially  approved  of  the  capture 
of  the  Rebel  emissaries.  Secretary  Seward  was  also 


290  Abraham  Lincoln 

opposed  to  making  any  concession  to  the  demands  of 
the  British  Government. 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  excitement  and  debate, 
Lincoln  remained  thoughtful,  anxious,  determined. 
From  the  first  he  was  doubtful  of  the  lawfulness  of 
the  seizure.  And,  as  he  examined  the  case  and 
studied  its  bearings,  he  became  convinced  that  the 
emissaries  must  be  given  up.  Now  that  the  world 
has  seen  and  acknowledged  the  justice  as  well  as  the 
wisdom  of  Lincoln's  position,  we  may  well  admire 
the  courage  and  the  sagacity  with  which  he  stood 
out  for  what  was  then  regarded  as  a  cowardly  and 
ill-advised  action.  He  was  firm  in  the  face  of  popu- 
lar clamor  and  popular  rage.  And  it  is  difficult  for 
those  who  did  not  feel  the  influence  of  those  exciting 
times  to  realize  how  easy  it  would  have  been  to  swim 
with  the  tide  and  rush  into  a  war  with  England,  as 
our  people  were  then  bent  on  doing.  .Said  Lincoln : 
"Once  we  fought  Great  Britain  for  doing  just  what 
Captain  Wilkes  has  done.  If  Great  Britain  protests 
against  this  act  and  demands  their  release,  we  must 
adhere  to  our  principles  of  1812.  We  must  give  up 
these  prisoners.  Besides,  one  war  at  a  time." 

This  declaration  from  Lincoln  filled  the  country 
with  dismay.  Give  up  the  Rebel  emissaries?  The 
thought  was  madness.  If  the  proposition  had  come 
from  any  man  but  Abraham  Lincoln,  it  would  have 
been  laughed  down,  overwhelmed  with  popular  deri- 
sion, no  matter  what  was  the  official  function  of  the 
man  who  made  it.  As  it  was,  not  a  few  of  the  more 
radical  and  violent  politicians  were  greatly  incensed 
against  the  President.  Thus  John  P.  Hale,  as  Sena- 


Beginning  of  the  Great  Struggle        291 

tor  from  New  Hampshire,  said:  "If  this  administra- 
tion will  not  listen  to  the  voice  of  the  people,  they 
will  find  themselves  engulfed  in  a  fire  that  will  con- 
sume them  like  stubble ;  they  will  be  helpless  before 
a  power  that  will  hurl  them  from  their  places." 
Nevertheless,  Lincoln  remained  firm.  The  envoys 
must  be  surrendered.  Lincoln  could  not  follow  the 
dictates  of  passion  or  prejudice  in  this  matter;  and 
it  required  a  lofty  regard  for  what  was  right,  just, 
and  expedient  for  him  to  rise  above  the  commotions 
of  the  hour  and  insist  that  the  claim  of  Great  Britain 
must  be  allowed  at  any  cost  of  private  resentment. 
Secretary  Seward  was  won  over  to  Lincoln's  view  of 
the  case,  and,  in  a  paper  of  singular  ingenuity  and 
skill,  he  gave  answer  to  the  demand  of  the  British 
Government.  The  envoys  were  surrendered. 

Great  was  the  derision  of  the  Rebels  over  this  act. 
Great  also  was  the  wrath  and  humiliation  of  most  of 
the  loyal  people  of  the  North.  The  Rebel  Govern- 
ment, always  hoping  for  full  recognition  and  assist- 
ance from  foreign  governments,  were  dismayed  and 
angry  that  this  provocation  to  war  had  been  averted 
by  Lincoln's  sagacity  and  sense  of  justice.  They 
heaped  upon  his  head  every  possible  epithet  to  de- 
note their  contempt  and  hatred.  And  in  the  North, 
it  must  be  admitted,  men  were  slow  in  arriving  at 
the  rational  conclusion  that  Lincoln  had  done  the 
Republic  a  service  invaluable.  His  enemies  and 
critics  were  clamorous  and  bitter.  But,  serene,  con- 
fident of  the  strength  of  the  position  he  had  taken 
in  this  weighty  affair,  Lincoln  remained  silent;  he 
waited  for  time  to  vindicate  the  wisdom  of  his  course. 


292  Abraham  Lincoln 

During  all  those  years  of  darkness  and  trial,  the 
attitude  of  the  European  governments  was  most  un- 
friendly towards  the  United  States.  Our  envoys 
were,  however,  instructed  to  assure  the  courts  to 
which  they  were  sent,  that  under  no  circumstances 
would  the  Government  of  the  United  States  consent 
that  the  Civil  War  should  be  regarded  by  any  foreign 
nation  as  other  than  a  domestic  disturbance,  to  be 
dealt  with  after  our  own  ideas  of  public  policy,  and 
to  be  ended  by  an  exercise  of  the  sovereign  power  of 
the  Republic.  But  it  required  all  of  Lincoln's  mag- 
nanimity, all  his  wisdom,  all  his  influence  with  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  to  restrain  and  guide 
public  opinion  so  that  the  Republic  should  not  be 
hurried  into  an  unnecessary  war.  Smarting  under 
repeated  insults  offered  to  the  American  name  and 
flag  in  foreign  lands,  Americans  everywhere  were 
irritated  and  resentful  towards  English  leaders  and 
European  governments.  But  Lincoln  never,  as 
President,  allowed  his  resentments  to  influence  his 
public  policy.  As  the  man  Lincoln  had  been  pa- 
tient under  great  provocation,  forgiving,  kind,  and 
merciful,  so  the  President  showed  in  his  high  office 
the  same  noble  qualities,  the  same  elevated  character. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

THE    SLAVERY    QUESTION   ARISES. 

Fremont's  Troubles  in  Missouri — His  Policy  Disapproved  by  the 
President — Gen.  Hunter's  Proclamation  Revoked — Irritation  in 
the  Border  States — Lincoln  Invites  a  Conference — Arming  the 
Freedmen  Proposed — Lincoln's  Letter  to  Horace  Greeley — The 
Emancipation  Proclamation  Issued. 

1VTEW  trials  of  patience  and  sagacity  now  arose. 
*  ^  The  irrepressible  slavery  question  came  to  the 
surface  and  would  not  be  long  disregarded.  Two 
generals  of  the  Federal  army,  McClellan  and  Fre- 
mont, took  views  on  this  question  that  were  directly 
opposed  to  each  other.  Lincoln  stood  between.  Mc- 
Clellan, by  a  series  of  brilliant  victories  in  West 
Virginia,  and  by  his  short  and  pungent  bulletins  an- 
nouncing the  same,  had  won  the  hearts  of  the  people, 
and  had  inspired  the  popular  belief  that  he  was  the 
great  military  genius  that  was  to  put  down  the  re- 
bellion. Fremont,  who  had  been  the  Presidential 
candidate  of  the  Republicans  four  years  before  Lin- 
coln's election,  had  hurried  home  from  Europe  on 
the  breaking  out  of  the  Rebellion,  and  had  thrown 
himself  enthusiastically  into  the  war  for  the  pre- 
servation of  the  Union.  Almost  on  the  same  day  in 
July,  1 86 1,  Fremont  was  commissioned  a  major- 
general  and  McClellan  was  assigned  to  command  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  then  numbering  about 

293 


294  Abraham  Lincoln 

two  hundred  thousand  men.  Fr6mont  was  assigned 
to  command  of  the  Department  of  the  West,  with 
headquarters  at  St.  Louis.  Missouri  was  plunged 
in  a  state  of  wild  disorder.  Murders,  neighborhood 
feuds,  assassinations,  secret  crimes  of  various  de- 
grees of  turpitude,  and  outrages  of  every  sort  were 
common.  The  State  was  classed  as  doubtful  for  the 
Union,  being  overrun  with  secessionists,  although 
the  local  government  had  not  declared  for  separa- 
tion. It  was  time  that  something  vigorous  and  de- 
cisive in  character  should  be  done.  The  State  was 
distressed  with  all  the  horrors  of  bloody  feuds  and 
guerilla  warfare. 

On  the  3ist  of  August,  General  Fremont  issued  a 
proclamation  declaring  Missouri  to  be  under  martial 
law,  defining  the  lines  of  the  army  of  occupation,  and 
notifying  the  people  that  all  persons  found  within 
those  lines  with  arms  in  their  hands,  unless  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States,  would  be  put  to  death. 
Furthermore,  the  proclamation  declared  that  the 
property  of  all  persons  in  a  state  of  rebellion  against 
the  authority  of  the  United  States  would  be  seized 
and  confiscated,  and  that  the  slaves  of  such  persons 
would  be  free  under  the  operation  of  his  proclamation. 

These  declarations  fell  on  the  people  of  the  United 
States  with  astounding  effect.  They  were,  in  brief, 
a  proclamation  of  a  policy  of  confiscation  of  Rebel 
property  and  emancipation  of  the  slaves  of  Rebels. 
In  the  loyal  States,  the  people  were  thrilled  with  the 
thought  that  a  heavy  blow  had  been  struck  at  the 
institution  of  slavery.  The  Rebels,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  infuriated.  Up  to  this  time,  no  sacri- 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  295 

legious  hand  had  been  laid  on  the  time-honored 
right  of  property  in  slaves.  Here  was  a  proclama- 
tion of  emancipation  from  a  general  of  the  army. 
For  a  space,  all  men  held  their  breath  and  waited. 
What  would  Lincoln  say? 

There  were  many  reasons  why  he  should  disap- 
prove of  the  proclamation  of  a  policy  of  emancipa- 
tion, confiscation,  and  "no  quarter."  Congress  had 
already  passed  a  bill  to  confiscate  property  used 
for  insurrectionary  purposes;  and  the  people  had 
become  somewhat  used  to  the  idea  that  slaves,  as 
property,  employed  in  military  operations,  could  be 
confiscated.  In  the  next  place,  Lincoln  was  even 
then  trying  to  soothe  the  angry  and  uneasy  feelings 
of  the  people  of  the  border  States  and  induce  them  to 
remain  loyal  to  the  Union,  and,  if  possible,  prepare 
the  way  for  a  gradual  emancipation.  The  sudden 
order  of  Fremont  would  be  sure  to  make  Lincoln's 
task  more  difficult.  And  the  notification  that  armed 
men  inside  the  lines  of  the  army  of  occupation  would 
be  shot  would  certainly  provoke  reprisals  from  the 
Rebels.  In  fact,  almost  as  soon  as  Fremont's  pro- 
clamation was  issued,  Jeff.  Thompson,  a  brigadier 
commanding  Rebel  forces  in  Missouri,  put  forth  a 
counter -proclamation  announcing  that  for  every 
soldier  of  the  State  guard,  or  of  the  Confederate 
army,  so  executed,  he  would  "hang,  draw,  and  quarter 
a  minion  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  thereby  meaning  any 
person  who  remained  true  to  the  Federal  cause. 

It  should  be  understood  that  Fremont  was  very 
popular  in  the  West,  where  he  was  looked  upon  not 
only  as  the  ideal  soldier,  but  as  a  champion  and 


296  Abraham  Lincoln 

leader  of  the  cause  of  freedom.  His  nomination  as 
the  Republican  candidate  for  the  Presidency,  in 
1856,  gave  him  a  certain  political  prestige  that  was 
not  readily  weakened,  and  which  undoubtedly  still 
was  very  dear  to  him.  As  the  famed  ''Pathfinder" 
and  explorer,  there  was  some  degree  of  romantic 
interest  attached  to  his  name,  and  thousands  of 
people  who  did  not  consider  all  the  consequences  of 
his  acts  were  ready  to  cheer  whatever  he  said  or  did. 
Lincoln  was  greatly  distressed  by  this  act  of  insub- 
ordination (for  such  it  was)  on  the  part  of  Fremont, 
and  was  troubled  by  the  necessity  of  rebuking  a  man 
whose  services  he  hoped  to  find  useful  in  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Rebellion.  But  he  determined  to 
allow  Fremont  an  opportunity  to  recall  and  modify 
his  proclamation.  Accordingly,  he  sent  him  by  a 
private  messenger  a  letter  asking  him  to  make  such 
changes  in  the  proclamation  as  would  conform  it  to 
the  act  of  Congress  already  referred  to.  "Should 
you  shoot  a  man,  according  to  the  proclamation," 
said  Lincoln,  "the  Confederates  would  very  certainly 
shoot  our  best  men  in  their  hands,  in  retaliation; 
and  so  on,  indefinitely.  It  is,  therefore,  my  order 
that  you  allow  no  man  to  be  shot  without  .first  having 
my  approbation  or  consent." 

As  for  the  other  part  of  Fremont's  manifesto, 
Lincoln  said :  "I  think  there  is  great  danger  that  the 
closing  paragraph,  in  relation  to  the  confiscation  of 
property  and  the  liberating  of  slaves  of  traitorous 
owners,  will  alarm  our  Southern  Union  friends  and 
turn  them  against  us;  perhaps  ruin  our  rather  fair 
prospect  for  Kentucky."  He  asked  Fremont  (as  if 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  297 

of  his  own  motion,  and  not  with  the  public  under- 
standing that  he  had  been  overruled  from  Washing- 
ton) to  modify  the  proclamation  so  as  to  have  it 
conformable  to  the  laws  of  Congress  and  the  rules 
of  war  already  suggested.  At  that  time  there  were 
not  a  few  persons  who  thought,  when  the  President's 
letter  was  made  public,  that  Lincoln  desired  to  have 
Fremont  bear  the  brunt  of  the  unfriendly  criticism 
that  might  be  made  on  a  modification  of  his  now 
famous  proclamation,  while  Lincoln  should  escape 
that  censure.  Perhaps  Fremont  thought  this.  But 
Lincoln's  kindness  of  heart  undoubtedly  did  suggest 
this  means  of  escape  for  Fremont  from  the  dilemma 
in  which  he  had  been  involved.  Fremont  was  fixed, 
however,  in  his  opinions.  He  declined  to  recall  or 
change  any  part  of  his  admired  proclamation;  and 
Lincoln,  in  an  order  dated  September  n,  1861,  did 
so  modify  the  proclamation  of  Fremont  that  it 
should  not  transcend  the  provisions  of  the  act  of 
Congress  before  mentioned.  General  Fr6mont  sub- 
sequently wrote  to  one  of  the  Rebel  officers  com- 
manding in  Missouri,  qualifying  and  explaining  that 
part  of  his  proclamation  relating  to  shooting  pris- 
oners, and  declaring  that  it  was  not  intended  to 
apply  to  any  men  engaged  in  military  operations  in 
the  field,  or  to  ignore  the  ordinary  rights  of  humanity 
with  respect  to  wounded  men.  Thus  terminated 
that  important  and  exciting  incident. 

At  this  point  it  may  as  well  be  recorded  that 
General  David  Hunter,  commanding  the  Military 
Department  of  the  South,  with  headquarters  at 
Hilton  Head,  S.  C.,  did,  in  the  following  May,  also 


298  Abraham  Lincoln 

issue  a  proclamation  of  emancipation  not  unlike 
that  of  Fremont.  In  this  document  he  recited  the 
fact  that  martial  law  had  been  proclaimed  in  the 
States  of  Georgia,  Florida,  and  South  Carolina,  and 
that,  as  slavery  and  martial  law  were  incompatible 
with  each  other  in  a  free  country,  all  persons  in  those 
three  States,  "heretofore  held  as  slaves,  are  therefore 
declared  forever  free."  This  extraordinary  procla- 
mation was  revoked  by  Lincoln  without  delay,  and 
with  none  of  the  gentle  consideration  he  had  shown 
to  Fremont.  Hunter  had  before  him  the  example 
of  Fremont's  being  overruled,  and  Lincoln  justly 
thought  that  his  offence  was  therefore  less  excusable 
than  the  indiscretion  of  Fremont.  In  a  proclama- 
tion issued  by  the  President  as  soon  as  Hunter's 
manifesto  could  reach  Washington,  some  doubt  was 
expressed  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  document 
signed  by  General  Hunter.  But  the  President  pro- 
claimed ' '  that  neither  General  Hunter  nor  any  other 
commander  or  p  rson  has  been  authorized  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  to  make  proclama- 
tion declaring  the  slaves  of  any  State  free;  and 
that  the  supposed  proclamation,  now  in  question, 
whether  genuine  or  false,  is  altogether  void,  so  far 
as  respects  such  declaration."  He  further  said,  to 
settle  forever  all  doubt  on  this  grave  matter,  that  he 
reserved  to  himself  the  right  to  determine  whether 
it  should  become  a  necessity,  indispensable  to  the 
maintenance  of  the  Government,  to  exercise  the  sup- 
posed power  of  proclaiming  emancipation  to  the 
slaves.  He  could  not  delegate  that  authority  to 
commanders  in  the  field  under  any  circumstances. 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  299 

Although  Lincoln  quoted,  for  the  benefit  of  these 
over-hasty  generals,  the  act  of  Congress  relating  to 
the  confiscation  of  Rebel  property,  it  is  evident  that 
he  would  not  permit  that  to  stand  in  the  way  of  an 
emancipation  of  the  slaves  whenever  he  thought  the 
time  had  come  for  that  act.  He  saw  from  the  first 
that  freedom  for  the  slaves  would  be  one  of  the  re- 
sults of  the  Rebellion.  He  looked  for  that;  but  he 
reserved  for  himself  the  right  of  declaring  when  the 
time  had  arrived.  Lincoln  was  a  rigid  defender  of 
the  Constitution,  and  he  had  even  declared  that  so 
long  as  the  Constitution  allowed  slavery  to  exist,  a 
law  to  reclaim  fugitive  slaves  was  permissible.  And 
so  long  as  the  border  States  were  to  be  saved  to  the 
Union,  he  was  reluctant  to  allow  anything  to  happen, 
that  he  could  avert,  to  alienate  and  anger  the  people 
of  those  States.  He  hated  slavery,  and  he  would  be 
glad  to  sweep  it  from  the  land ;  but  his  first  duty  was 
to  the  Federal  Union;  and  he  declared  that  if  he 
could  save  the  Union,  with  or  without  slavery,  he 
would  do  that,  and  that  alone. 

On  this  line  of  policy  the  Secretary  of  State  was 
instructed  to  assure  the  governments  of  European 
nations  that  no  change  in  the  domestic  institutions 
of  the  Southern  States  was  proposed.  It  was  true 
that  many  persons,  hostile  to  Lincoln,  hostile  to  the 
Federal  Union,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  had  all 
along  insisted  that  the  war  was  waged  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery ;  and  it  was  not  uncommon  for  these 
to  stigmatize  the  Union  soldiers  and  the  Federal 
officers  as  "abolition  hirelings."  General  McClellan 
showed  that  he  was  particularly  sensitive  to  re- 


300  Abraham  Lincoln 

preaches  of  this  sort,  and,  in  his  letters  to  the  Presi- 
dent, he  urged  that  every  assurance  be  given  to 
pledge  the  administration  to  the  protection  of  the 
peculiar  institution.  McClellan's  attitude  upon  this 
question  was  so  marked  that  many  of  Lincoln's  im- 
patient friends  murmured  at  the  General's  being,  as 
they  said,  more  anxious  about  the  rights  of  the  slave- 
holders than  for  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  These 
attacks  upon  McClellan,  coming  as  they  did  when 
Lincoln  was  obliged  to  overrule  the  doings  of  Fre"- 
mont,  gave  the  President  infinite  anxiety,  and  added 
to  his  accumulating  burdens.  He  was  brutally 
criticised  by  political  opponents  in  the  North ;  he  was 
reproached  by  his  ardent  and  indiscreet  friends.  On 
the  one  hand,  he  was  accused  of  going  too  fast  in  the 
direction  of  the  destruction  of  slavery.  On  the  other 
hand,  he  was  bitterly  assailed  for  his  slowness  in  the 
same  direction.  The  opponents  of  the  war,  for  these 
had  begun  to  show  themselves,  called  him  an  Aboli- 
tionist. The  radical  Republicans  declared  that  he 
was  a  "pro -slavery  Republican." 

But  while  these  things  harassed  Lincoln,  they  did 
not  swerve  him  in  the  least  from  the  course  he  had 
marked  out  for  himself.  In  pursuance  of  his  plan  to 
provide  for  a  gradual  abolition  of  slavery,  com- 
pensating the  loyal  slaveholders  for  their  losses,  he 
sent  to  Congress,  on  the  6th  of  March,  1862,  a  mes- 
sage recommending  the  passage  of  a  joint  resolution 
declaring  that  the  United  States  ought  to  cooperate 
with  any  State  that  should  institute  measures  for 
the  gradual  emancipation  of  the  slaves,  extending  to 
such  State  pecuniary  aid  for  the  compensation  of 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  301 

those  whose  slaves  should  be  made  free  by  the  acts 
of  the  States.  In  that  message  Lincoln  said : 

"  If  the  proposition  contained  in  the  resolution  does  not 
meet  the  approval  of  Congress  and  the  country,  there  is  an 
end ;  but  if  it  does  command  such  approval,  I  deem  it  of 
importance  that  the  States  and  people  immediately  inter- 
ested should  at  once  be  distinctly  notified  of  the  fact,  so 
that  they  may  begin  to  consider  whether  to  accept  or 
reject  it." 

Furthermore,  he  said  that  if  resistance  to  the  na- 
tional authority  should  cease,  the  war  would  cease. 
That  was  an  intimation  that  if  the  war  ended  then, 
or  soon,  slavery  would  be  saved  unharmed.  "If," 
he  added,  "resistance  continues,  the  war  must  also 
continue ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  foresee  all  the  inci- 
dents which  may  attend,  and  all  the  ruin  which  may 
follow  it.  Such  as  may  seem  indispensable,  or  may 
obviously  promise  great  efficiency  toward  ending  the 
struggle,  must  and  will  come."  This  was  rightly 
understood  to  mean  that  it  was  possible  that,  if 
gradual  and  compensated  emancipation  were  not 
accepted,  slavery  would  be  destroyed"  by  the  long 
continuance  of  the  war. 

Congress  adopted  the  resolution.  The  border 
States,  for  which  it  was  intended  to  make  provision, 
regarded  the  measure  with  sullen  indifference.  Most 
of  the  border-State  men  in  Congress  voted  against 
the  resolution  or  let  it  severely  alone.  In  his 
anxiety,  Lincoln  invited  a  conference  at  the  White 
House  between  himself  and  the  border-State  Con- 
gressmen. He  wanted  to  avert  from  them,  if  it 


302  Abraham  Lincoln 

were  possible,  the  losses  that  he  saw  must  fall  upon 
them,  sooner  or  later.  If  they  would  only  accept 
the  plan  that  he  had  outlined  for  their  compensation, 
in  case  slavery  should  be  abolished  by  their  own  con- 
sent, all  might  yet  be  well.  To  these  representative 
Congressmen  he  read  a  carefully  prepared  paper, 
urging  upon  them  the  necessity  and  expediency  of 
their  acceding  to  his  plan.  He  had  been,  as  we  have 
seen,  an  advocate  of  the  policy  of  colonization,  once 
proposed  by  such  men  as  Henry  Clay,  and,  in  this 
address  to  the  border-State  men,  he  said:  "Room  in 
South  America  for  colonization  can  be  obtained 
cheaply  and  in  abundance ;  and,  when  numbers  shall 
be  large  enough  to  be  company  and  encouragement 
for  one  another,  the  freed  people  will  not  be  so 
reluctant  to  go." 

In  this  remarkable  address  the  President  allowed 
to  escape  him  only  one  phrase  that  indicated  his  own 
troubles.  Speaking  of  Hunter's  emancipation  edict, 
he  said  that  in  repudiating  it  he  had  given  offence 
and  dissatisfaction  to  many  whose  support  the 
country  could  not  afford  to  lose;  and  he  added: 
"The  pressure  in  this  direction  is  still  upon  me,  and 
is  increasing."  The  fact  was  that  the  loyal  people 
of  the  country  had  grown  weary  of  seeing  the  war 
delayed,  as  they  believed,  by  the  apparent  deter- 
mination of  the  Government  to  protect  slavery  at  all 
hazards.  Many  people  who  were  cordial  supporters 
of  Lincoln's  general  policy  denounced  some  of  the 
generals  of  the  army  as  "slave-catchers"  and  de- 
fenders of  the  peculiar  institution.  They  were 
almost  as  unreasonable  as  the  border-State  men,  who 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  3°3 

refused  to  be  moved  by  the  plaintive  appeal  of  the 
much-harassed  President.  The  conference  between 
the  President  and  the  border -State  men  bore  no 
fruit.  The  majority  of  those  whom  he  addressed 
responded  adversely  to  his  appeal.  He  might  have 
said,  then,  that  the  consequences  of  their  refusal 
were  soon  to  be  visited  upon  them  and  their  con- 
stituents. He  uttered  no  reproach,  no  warning. 

The  conference  here  alluded  to  took  place  in  July, 
1862.  It  seems  strange  that  the  representatives  of 
the  border  States  did  not  take  warning  by  what  had 
already  been  done  by  Congress.  A  bill  to  abolish 
slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia  had  passed 
Congress.  When  Lincoln  signed  the  bill  that  gave 
freedom  to  the  slaves  at  the  seat  of  the  National 
Government,  he  said:  "Little  did  I  dream,  in  1849, 
when  I  proposed  to  abolish  slavery  at  this  capital,  and 
could  scarcely  get  a  hearing  for  the  proposition,  that 
it  would  be  so  soon  accomplished."  There  was  a  cer- 
tain poetic  justice  that  the  man  who,  thirteen  years 
before,  had  had  the  courage  to  ask  that  slavery  be 
expelled  from  the  capital  of  the  nation  should  be 
permitted  to  set  his  signature,  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  to  the  measure  he  had  vainly  prof- 
fered as  a  representative  of  the  people. 

About  this  time,  that  is  to  say,  during  the  summer 
of  1862,  the  question  of  arming  the  freedmen  began 
to  be  seriously  considered.  There  were  many  of 
these  people  now  inside  the  lines  of  the  Union  army. 
They  acted  as  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water; 
were  employed  as  cooks,  teamsters,  and  laborers. 
Lincoln  immediately  favored  the  proposition  to  arm 


304  Abraham  Lincoln 

some  of  the  thousands  of  able-bodied  colored  men 
who  swarmed  the  Union  camps,  subsisting  on  rations 
furnished  them  by  the  Government.  He  said: 
"Negroes,  like  other  people,  act  from  motive.  Why 
should  they  do  anything  for  us  if  we  do  nothing  for 
them  ?  If  they  stake  their  lives  for  us,  they  must  be 
prompted  by  the  strongest  of  motives,  even  the 
promise  of  freedom.  And  the  promise,  being  made, 
must  be  kept."  With  his  usual  shrewdness,  Lincoln 
saw  in  the  arming  of  the  freedmen  another  reason, 
another  excuse,  for  their  liberation  from  the  bonds 
that  still  were  held  in  reserve  for  them,  as  it  were. 
Accordingly,  when  the  proposition  authorizing  the 
enlistment  of  colored  troops  became  a  law,  it  con- 
tained a  clause  giving  freedom  to  all  who  served  in 
the  army,  and  to  their  families  as  well. 

The  war  yet  lagged.  Military  operations  in  various 
parts  of  the  country  were  carried  on  without  any 
startling  or  decisive  results,  and  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  commanded  by  McClellan,  from  which  the 
people  expected  so  much,  remained  inactive  near 
Washington.  The  levying  of  troops  and  the  collect- 
ing of  new  and  burdensome  taxes  went  on,  to  the 
growing  discontent  of  the  people,  who  naturally 
asked  for  what  purpose  was  this  expenditure  if 
nothing  was  done  to  end  the  war  and  restore  the 
Federal  authority  in  the  so-called  seceded  States. 
This  discontent,  in  many  instances,  took  the  form  of 
a  protest  against  Lincoln's  hesitation  to  abolish 
slavery  everywhere  by  proclamation.  By  act  of 
Congress,  slavery  had  not  only  been  excluded  from 
the  District  of  Columbia,  but,  by  another  act,  it  was 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  3°5 

declared  illegal  in  the  Territories  of  the  United  States. 
Probably  the  best  expression  of  the  demand  for  an 
emancipation  proclamation  from  the  President, 
made  by  the  more  radical  of  Lincoln's  friends,  was  in 
a  letter  addressed  to  Lincoln  and  published  in  the 
New  York  Tribune  by  its  editor,  Horace  Greeley. 
In  his  letter  Mr.  Greeley  employed  language  that  was 
intemperate  and  even  dictatorial.  Mr.  Lincoln's 
immediate  friends  were  astonished  that  he  should 
appear  in  a  newspaper,  in  reply  to  a  letter  addressed 
to  him.  But  he  was  preparing  the  way  for  the 
emancipation  proclamation  which  subsequently  ap- 
peared. This  was  his  opportunity  to  aid  in  that 
preparation.  Accordingly,  under  date  of  August 
22,  1862,  he  sent  to  Mr.  Greeley  a  letter  which  may 
be  introduced  here  as  an  admirable  example  of 
Lincoln's  lucidity  of  style,  as  well  as  a  good  illustra- 
tion of  his  frankness  and  simplicity  of  character.  It 
may  be  said,  too,  that  though  Lincoln  was  criticised 
severely  for  taking  any  notice  of  Mr.  Greeley's  some- 
what heated  and  ungenerous  utterances,  these  critics 
did  not  understand  that  Lincoln  was  glad  of  an 
opportunity  to  address  the  people  through  Mr. 
Greeley's  paper.  Following  is  the  letter: 

"  Hon.  Horace  Greeley: 

"DEAR  SIR: — I  have  just  read  yours  of  the  nineteenth 
instant,  addressed  to  myself  through  the  New  York 
Tribune. 

"  If  there  be  in  it  any  statements  or  assumptions  of  facts 
which  I  may  know  to  be  erroneous,  I  do  not  now  and  here 
controvert  them. 


306  Abraham  Lincoln 

"  If  there  be  any  inferences  which  I  may  believe  to  be ' 
falsely  drawn,  I  do  not  now  and  here  argue  against  them. 

"  If  there  be  perceptible  in  it  an  impatient  and  dicta- 
torial tone,  I  waive  it  in  deference  to  an  old  friend  whose 
heart  I  have  always  supposed  to  be  right. 

"As  to  the  policy  I '  seem  to  be  pursuing,'  as  you  say,  I 
have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt.  I  would  save 
the  Union.  I  would  save  it  in  the  shortest  way  under  the 
Constitution. 

"  The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the 
nearer  the  Union  will  be — the  Union  as  it  was. 

"  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless 
they  could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not  agree 
with  them. 

"  If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless 
they  could  at  the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not 
agree  with  them. 

"My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and  not 
either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 

"  If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I 
would  do  it ;  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves,  I 
would  do  it ;  and  if  I  could  do  it  by  freeing  some  and  leav- 
ing others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that. 

"  What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do  be- 
cause I  believe  it  helps  to  save  this  Union;  and  what  I 
forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  believe  it  would  help 
to  save  the  Union. 

"  I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing 
hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  believe 
doing  more  will  help  the  cause. 

"  I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors, 
and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to 
be  true  views. 

"  I  have  here  stated  my  purpose  according  to  my  views 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  307 

of  official  duty,  and  I  intend  no  modification  of  my  oft- 
expressed  personal  wish  that  all  men  everywhere  could  be 
free. 

"Yours, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

Meanwhile,  the  Rebel  army,  under  General  Lee, 
had  achieved  some  important  successes,  and,  flushed 
with  victory,  had  crossed  the  Potomac  into  Mary- 
land. A  border  State,  yet  loyal  to  the  Union,  had 
been  invaded.  The  news  created  something  like  a 
panic  throughout  the  country.  Lincoln  was  pro- 
foundly stirred.  He  had  been  considering  the 
issuing  of  a  proclamation  of  emancipation.  He  had 
even  prepared  a  draft  of  such  a  document.  But 
when  others  urged  it  upon  him  he  almost  invariably 
argued  against  it;  and  in  this  way,  as  had  been  his 
wont  when  he  was  in  the  profession  of  the  law,  he 
found  the  weakest  as  well  as  the  strongest  points  of 
the  case  under  consideration.  He  seemed  to  hesitate. 
But,  as  he  subsequently  admitted,  when  Maryland 
was  invaded  by  the  Rebel  forces,  and  the  national 
capital  was  put  in  jeopardy,  he  made  a  solemn  vow  to 
God  that,  if  the  invader  should  be  expelled,  he  would 
thereupon  issue  the  long-deferred  proclamation.  The- 
battle  of  South  Mountain  was  fought  September 
1 4th,  the  battle  of  Antietam  on  the  seventeenth  of 
the  month.  The  Rebels  were  whipped,  routed,  and 
broken  into  pieces.  They  retreated  across  the  Po- 
tomac, and  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  were  saved. 
On  the  twenty-second  of  September,  1862,  the  Presi- 
dent issued  his  immortal  proclamation  declaring  free- 
dom to  the  slaves  in  bondage, 


3o8  Abraham  Lincoln 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  was  hailed  with 
great  acclaim  throughout  the  free  States.  Bonfires, 
illuminations,  salvos  of  artillery,  and  public  meetings 
manifested  the  people's  joy  over  what  was  declared 
to  be  the  downfall  of  slavery.  The  "house  divided 
against  itself"  would  no  longer  exist  so  divided.  In 
many  towns  and  cities  thanksgiving  services  were 
held,  resolutions  of  approval  and  congratulation 
were  adopted,  and  the  President  was  assured,  by 
every  possible  form  of  words,  of  the  hearty  coopera- 
tion of  the  nation  in  the  work  yet  remaining  to  be 
done.  From  this  time  forward,  the  war  took  on  a 
new  aspect.  It  was  a  war  for  the  re -establishment 
of  the  Union — the  Union  without  slavery.  Lincoln, 
by  the  terms  of  his  proclamation,  exempted  from  its 
provisions  those  States  and  parts  of  States  in  which 
the  Federal  authority  was  acknowledged.  He  was 
faithful  to  his  promise  not  to  interfere  with  the 
peculiar  institution  in  the  loyal  States.  And  in  the 
final  issue  of  the  proclamation,  New  Year's  Day, 
1863,  he  mentioned  by  name  the  parts  of  the  Federal 
Union  thus  exempted.  But  these  exceptions  were 
felt  to  be  comparatively  inconsiderable.  Virtually, 
slavery  was  abolished  everywhere.  In  a  few  months, 
at  furthest,  freedom,  not  slavery,  would  be  the  rule 
over  every  inch  of  territory  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  ancient  reproach  would  be  removed  from 
the  Republic. 

The  right  of  a  military  power  to  seize  and  con- 
fiscate the  property  of  the  persons  with  which  it  was 
contending  is  unquestioned.  Slaves,  being  regarded 
as  property,  were  liable  to  confiscation.  According 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  309 

to  the  laws  of  war,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  had  a  clear  right  to  treat  the  Rebels  as  public 
enemies,  and  the  act  of  emancipation  exercised  by 
the  President,  as  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army 
and  Navy  of  the  United  States,  weakening  the  power 
of  those  public  enemies,  was  strictly  in  accordance 
with  the  laws  and  usages  of  civilized  nations.  In 
due  course  of  time,  however,  Congress  so  exercised 
its  civil  power,  by  the  entire  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  Republic,  that  any  possible  doubt  as  to  the 
efficacy  of  the  President's  act  disappeared. 

It  should  be  said  that  the  members  of  the  Presi- 
dent's Cabinet  not  only  cordially  approved  of  the 
issuing  of  the  proclamation,  but  they  filled  their 
proper  functions  as  advisers  of  the  President  in  this 
matter.  Lincoln  had  prepared  his  proclamation 
earlier  in  the  year.  He  was  ready  to  issue  it  in  July. 
When  the  subject  was  laid  before  the  Cabinet  for 
final  approval,  Secretary  Seward  strongly  urged 
that  its  promulgation  be  postponed  for  a  while.  At 
that  time  the  Rebel  army  under  General  Lee  was 
marching  northward  to  invade  Pennsylvania.  The 
military  fortunes  of  the  Republic  were  at  a  low  ebb. 
There  was  great  depression  of  spirit  everywhere. 
Mr.  Seward  argued  that  the  issuing  of  the  emanci- 
pation at  that  critical  juncture  would  be  generally 
regarded  as  a  cry  for  help;  or,  as  Lincoln  put  it, 
when  reporting  the  fact  afterwards,  "our  last  shriek 
on  the  retreat."  It  was  then  that  Lincoln  agreed  to 
put  off  the  day  of  proclamation,  and  subsequently 
made  the  vow  to  God  to  issue  the  portentous  and 
solemn  document  if  Lee  should  be  driven  back.  It 


310  Abraham  Lincoln 

was  at  Mr.  Seward's  suggestion,  too,  that  the  word 
"maintain"  was  inserted,  so  that  the  clause  thus 
amended  read:  "I  do  order  and  declare  that  all 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  said  designated  States 
and  parts  of  States  are,  and  henceforth  shall  be,  free ; 
and  that  the  executive  Government  .of  the  United 
States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authorities 
thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of 
said  persons."  Mr.  Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  penned  the  concluding  paragraph,  which, 
being  approved  by  the  President,  was  added,  as  fol- 
lows: "And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be 
an  act  of  justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution, 
upon  military  necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate 
judgment  of  mankind,  and  the  gracious  favor  of 
Almighty  God."  The  words  "upon  military  neces- 
sity," however,  were  inserted  by  Lincoln  before  the 
paragraph  was  adopted  by  him  as  a  part  of  this 
immortal  document. 

The  people  of  foreign  countries,  especially  of  Eng- 
land, poured  across  the  Atlantic  their  congratu- 
lations that  slavery  was  at  last  abolished  in  the 
Republic  of  the  United  States.  Lincoln  had  been 
assured  by  many  of  the  more  advanced  Republicans 
who  were  nearest  him,  that  the  British  Government 
would  cordially  respond  to  this  declaration  of  uni- 
versal freedom.  In  this  he  was  disappointed.  Lord 
John  Russell,  who,  as  Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  was  the  official  mouthpiece  of  the  British 
Government  in  matters  outside  of  the  kingdom,  in 
a  despatch  to  the  British  Minister  at  Washington, 
mildly  sneered  at  the  proclamation  as  "a  measure  of 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  311 

a  very  questionable  kind,"  "an  act  of  vengeance  on 
the  slaveowner."  With  evident  ill-nature  and  dis- 
position to  cavil,  his  lordship  said:  "It  professes  to 
emancipate  slaves  where  the  United  States  authori- 
ties cannot  make  emancipation  a  reality,  but  emanci- 
pates no  one  where  the  decree  can  be  carried  into 
effect."  His  lordship  lived  to  see  the  decree  carried 
into  effect  in  every  part  of  the  American  Republic. 

But  in  spite  of  the  unconcealed  hostility  of  govern- 
ments that  bore  only  ill-will  to  the  Republic,  in  spite 
of  the  moral  assistance  given  by  these  to  the  slave- 
holders' rebellion,  the  fiat  had  gone  forth  throughout 
all  the  land  that  slavery  should  be  no  more.  For  a 
brief  season  the  hated  system  clung  to  the  earth  on 
which  it  had  fattened.  Thenceforward  its  struggles 
were  fainter  and  more  faint.  The  son  of  the  soil,  he 
who  embodied  in  himself  the  genius  of  America  and 
its  highest  manhood,  had  set  his  hand  to  the  decree  of 
universal  freedom. 

The  preliminary  proclamation  of  September  22, 

1862,  and  the  final  proclamation,  dated  January  i, 

1863,  are  as  follows: 

"  I,  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  President  of  the  United  States 
of  America,  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and 
Navy  thereof,  do  hereby  proclaim  and  declare  that  here- 
after, as  heretofore,  the  war  will  be  prosecuted  for  the 
object  of  practically  restoring  the  constitutional  relation 
between  the  United  States  and  each  of  the  States,  and 
the  people  thereof,  in  which  States  that  relation  is  or 
may  be  suspended  or  disturbed. 

"  That  it  is  my  purpose,  upon  the  next  meeting  of  Con- 
gress, to  again  recommend  the  adoption  of  a  practical 


312  Abraham  Lincoln 

measure  tendering  pecuniary  aid  to  the  free  acceptance 
or  rejection  of  all  slave  States,  so  called,  the  people  where- 
of may  not  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States, 
and  which  States  may  then  have  voluntarily  adopted,  or 
thereafter  may  voluntarily  adopt,  immediate  or  gradual 
abolishment  of  slavery  within  their  respective  limits; 
and  that  the  effort  to  colonize  persons  of  African  descent 
with  their  consent  upon  this  continent  or  elsewhere,  with 
the  previously  obtained  consent  of  the  Governments 
existing  there,  will  be  continued. 

"That,  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-three,  all 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State,  or  designated  part 
of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebellion 
against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thenceforward, 
and  forever  free;  and  the  Executive  Government  of  the 
United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval  authority 
thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom  of  such 
persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such  persons, 
or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for  their 
actual  freedom. 

"That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January 
aforesaid,  by  proclamation,  designate  the  States  and  parts 
of  States,  if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof  respectively 
shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States ;  and 
the  fact  that  any  State,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that 
day  be,  in  good  faith,  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections 
wherein  a  majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  State 
shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the  absence  of  strong 
countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evi- 
dence that  such  State,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  in 
rebellion  against  the  United  States. 

"  That  attention  is  hereby  called  to  an  act  of  Congress 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  313 

entitled  'An  act  to  make  an  additional  article  of  war,' 
approved  March  13,  1862,  and  which  act  is  in  the  words 
and  figures  following: 

" '  Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representa- 
tives of  the  United  States  of  America  in  Congress  assem- 
bled, that  hereafter  the  following  shall  be  promulgated  as 
an  additional  article  of  war,  for  the  government  of  the 
army  of  the  United  States,  and  shall  be  obeyed  and 
observed  as  such  : 

"'ARTICLE. — All  officers  or  persons  in  the  military  or 
naval  service  of  the  United  States  are  prohibited  from 
employing  any  of  the  forces  under  their  respective  com- 
mands for  the  purpose  of  returning  fugitives  from  service 
or  labor  who  may  have  escaped  from  any  persons  to 
whom  such  service  or  labor  is  claimed  to  be  due,  and  any 
officer  who  shall  be  found  guilty  by  a  court-martial  of 
violating  this  article  shall  be  dismissed  from  service. 

" '  SEC.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  that  this  act  shall 
take  effect  from  and  after  its  passage.' 

"  Also  to  the  ninth  and  tenth  sections  of  an  act  entitled 
'  An  act  to  suppress  insurrection,  to  punish  treason  and 
rebellion,  to  seize  and  confiscate  property  of  rebels,  and 
for  other  purposes,'  approved  July  17,  1862,  and  which 
sections  are  in  the  words  and  figures  following : 

" '  SEC.  9.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  all  slaves  of 
persons  who  shall  hereafter  be  engaged  in  rebellion  against 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  or  who  shall  in  any 
way  give  aid  or  comfort  thereto,  escaping  from  such  per- 
sons and  taking  refuge  within  the  lines  of  the  army ;  and 
all  slaves  captured  from  such  persons  or  deserted  by  them, 
and  coming  under  the  control  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States ;  and  all  slaves  of  such  persons  found  on  [or] 
being  within  any  place  occupied  by  rebel  forces  and  after- 
wards occupied  by  the  forces  of  the  United  States,  shall 


Abraham  Lincoln 

be  deemed  captives  of  war,  and  shall  be  forever  free  of 
their  servitude,  and  not  again  held  as  slaves. 

'"SEC.  10.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  no  slave 
escaping  into  any  State,  Territory,  or  the  District  of 
Columbia,  from  any  other  State,  shall  be  delivered  up, 
or  in  any  way  impeded  or  hindered  of  his  liberty,  except 
for  crime,  or  some  offence  against  the  laws,  unless  the 
person  claiming  said  fugitive  shall  first  make  oath  that 
the  person  to  whom  the  labor  or  service  of  such  fugitive 
is  alleged  to  be  due  is  his  lawful  owner  and  has  not  borne 
arms  against  the  United  States  in  the  present  rebellion, 
nor  in  any  way  given  aid  and  comfort  thereto;  and  no 
person  engaged  in  the  military  or  naval  service  of  the 
United  States  shall,  under  any  pretence  whatever, 
assume  to  decide  on  the  validity  of  the  claim  of  any  per- 
son to  the  service  or  labor  of  any  other  person,  or  sur- 
render up  any  such  person  to  the  claimant,  on  pain  of 
being  dismissed  from  the  service.' 

"And  I  do  hereby  enjoin  upon  and  order  all  persons 
engaged  in  the  military  and  naval  service  of  the  United 
States  to  observe,  obey,  and  enforce,  within  their  respec- 
tive spheres  of  service,  the  act  and  sections  above  recited. 

"And  the  Executive  will  in  due  time  recommend  that 
all  citizens  of  the  United  States  who  shall  have  remained 
loyal  thereto  throughout  the  rebellion  shall  (upon  the 
restoration  of  the  constitutional  relation  between  the 
United  States  and  their  States  and  people,  if  that  relation 
shall  have  been  suspended  or  disturbed)  be  compensated 
for  all  losses  by  acts  of  the  United  States,  including  the 
loss  of  slaves. 

"  In  witness  whereof  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand,  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"Done  at  the  city  of  Washington  this  twenty-second 
day  of  September,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises  315 

eight  hundred  and  sixty-two,  and  the  independence  of 
the  United  States  the  eighty-seventh. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 
"By  the  President: 
"WILLIAM  H.  SEWARD,  Secretary  of  State." 


"  WHEREAS,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  September,  in 
the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
sixty- two,  a  proclamation  was  issued  by  the  President  of 
the  United  States  containing,  among  other  things,  the 
following,  to  wit : 

" '  That  on  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- three,  all 
persons  held  as  slaves  within  any  State  or  designated 
part  of  a  State,  the  people  whereof  shall  then  be  in  rebel- 
lion against  the  United  States,  shall  be  then,  thencefor- 
ward, and  forever  free;  and  the  Executive  Government 
of  the  United  States,  including  the  military  and  naval 
authority  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain  the  freedom 
of  such  persons,  and  will  do  no  act  or  acts  to  repress  such 
persons,  or  any  of  them,  in  any  efforts  they  may  make  for 
their  actual  freedom. 

" '  That  the  Executive  will,  on  the  first  day  of  January 
aforesaid,  by  proclamation,  designate  the  States  and  parts 
of  States,  if  any,  in  which  the  people  thereof,  respectively, 
shall  then  be  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States ;  and 
the  fact  that  any  State,  or  the  people  thereof,  shall  on  that 
day  be  in  good  faith  represented  in  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  by  members  chosen  thereto  at  elections 
wherein  a  majority  of  the  qualified  voters  of  such  State 
shall  have  participated,  shall,  in  the  absence  of  strong 
countervailing  testimony,  be  deemed  conclusive  evidence 


316  Abraham  Lincoln 

that  such  State,  and  the  people  thereof,  are  not  then  in 
rebellion  against  the  United  States.' 

"  Now,  therefore,  I,  Abraham  Lincoln,  President  of  the 
United  States,  by  virtue  of  the  power  in  me  vested  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United 
States,  in  time  of  actual  armed  rebellion  against  the 
authority  and  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  as  a 
fit  and  necessary  war  measure  for  suppressing  said  rebel- 
lion, do,  on  this  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty- three,  and  in 
accordance  with  my  purpose  so  to  do,  publicly  proclaimed 
for  the  full  period  of  one  hundred  days  from  the  day  first 
above  mentioned,  order  and  designate  as  the  States  and 
parts  of  States  wherein  the  people  thereof,  respectively, 
are  this  day  in  rebellion  against  the  United  States,  the 
following,  to  wit : 

"  Arkansas,  Texas,  Louisiana  (except  the  parishes  of  St. 
Bernard,  Plaquemines,  Jefferson,  St.  John,  St.  Charles,  St. 
James,  Ascension,  Assumption,  Terre  Bonne,  Lafourche, 
St.  Mary,  St.  Martin,  and  Orleans,  including  the  city  of 
New  Orleans),  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Florida,  Georgia, 
South  Carolina,  and  Virginia  (except  the  forty-eight  coun- 
ties designated  as  West  Virginia,  and  also  the  counties  of 
Berkeley,  Accomac,  Northampton,  Elizabeth  City,  York, 
Princess  Ann,  and  Norfolk,  including  the  cities  of  Norfolk 
and  Portsmouth),  and  which  excepted  parts  are  for  the 
present  left  precisely  as  if  this  proclamation  were  not  issued. 

"  And  by  virtue  of  the  power  and  for  the  purpose  afore- 
said, I  do  order  and  declare  that  all  persons  held  as  slaves 
within  said  designated  States  and  parts  of  States  are,  and 
henceforward  shall  be,  free;  and  that  the  Executive 
Government  of  the  United  States,  including  the  military 
and  naval  authorities  thereof,  will  recognize  and  maintain 
the  freedom  of  said  persons. 


The  Slavery  Question  Arises          3*7 

"And  I  hereby  enjoin  upon  the  people  so  declared  to 
be  free  to  abstain  from  all  violence,  unless  in  necessary 
self-defence ;  and  I  recommend  to  them  that,  in  all  cases 
when  allowed,  they  labor  faithfully  for  reasonable  wages. 

"  And  I  further  declare  and  make  known  that  such  per- 
sons, of  suitable  condition,  will  be  received  into  the  armed 
service  of  the  United  States  to  garrison  forts,  positions, 
stations  and  other  places,  and  to  man  vessels  of  all  sorts 
in  said  service. 

"And  upon  this  act,  sincerely  believed  to  be  an  act  of 
justice,  warranted  by  the  Constitution  upon  military 
necessity,  I  invoke  the  considerate  judgment  of  mankind 
and  the  gracious  favor  of  Almighty  God. 

"  In  witness  whereof,  I  have  hereunto  set  my  hand  and 
caused  the  seal  of  the  United  States  to  be  affixed. 

"Done  at  the  city  of  Washington  this  first  day  of 
January,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  sixty-three,  and  of  the  independence  of  the 
United  States  of  America  the  eighty-seventh. 

"ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 


CHAPTER  XXII. 

A   DIFFICULT    MILITARY   SITUATION. 

Creation  and  Equipment  of  an  Army — The  Federal  Military  Plan- 
Retirement  of  General  Scott — General  McClellan  in  Full  Com- 
mand— Appearance  of  General  U.  S.  Grant — Fall  of  Forts  Henry 
and  Donelson — Criticism  of  McClellan — Death  of  the  President's 
Son  Willie — Military  Operations  on  the  Peninsula — McClellan's 
Extraordinary  Delays — His  Advice  to  the  President — Halleck 
Made  General-in-Chief — A  Conference  of  Loyal  Governors — The 
Second  Bull  Run  Defeat — Antietam — McClellan  Relieved  of  His 
Command. 

WHILE  the  steps  that  led  up  to  the  issuing  of. 
the  emancipation  proclamation  were  being 
taken,  Lincoln  was  greatly  troubled  by  the  difficul- 
ties and  dangers  of  the  military  situation.  The  eyes 
of  the  people,  for  the  most  part,  were  turned  toward 
Washington,  where  was  the  focus  of  all  intelligence 
relating  to  the  conduct  of  the  war  as  well  as  to 
political  affairs.  The  operations  around  the  national 
capital  were,  for  various  reasons,  more  interesting 
than  were  those  of  greater  real  importance  in  other 
parts  of  the  country.  In  that  direction,  it  seemed, 
nothing  was  done  but  to  make  elaborate  and  exten- 
sive preparations.  General  McClellan  was  now  in 
the  zenith  of  his  fame  and  popularity.  He  was  yet 
young,  barely  turned  of  thirty-six,  but  he  had  already 
made  himself  a  favorite  with  the  army  and  the  peo- 
ple. From  the  first,  Lincoln  was  profoundly  anxious 

318 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  3*9 

to  find  generals  who  could  command  popular  confi- 
dence and  also  win  battles.  This  was  not  an  easy 
task.  The  larger  number  of  the  men  who  appeared 
to  be  available  were  not  skilled  in  military  tactics 
and  strategy ;  they  had  had  very  little  experience  in 
real  war.  Of  the  veterans  of  the  war  with  Mexico, 
General  Scott  and  General  Wool  were  now  well  ad- 
vanced in  years.  The  abilities  of  the  younger 
graduates  of  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point 
had  not  yet  been  developed.  Affairs  were  in  a  con- 
fused and  chaotic  condition. 

Many  men  fresh  from  civil  life  were  commissioned 
as  major  and  brigadier  generals.  Some  of  these 
proved  good  soldiers,  and  many  of  them  proved  in- 
competent. The  losses  entailed  by  the  preliminary 
trials  and  schooling  of  these  civilian  generals  were 
doubtless  very  great.  When  McClellan,  fresh  from 
victorious  fields,  assumed  command  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  in  the  summer  of  1861,  he  found  a  fine 
body  of  men,  fifty  thousand  in  number,  waiting  for 
his  organizing  hand.  Fresh  levies  of  troops  were 
pouring  in,  and  before  the  year  closed,  his  command 
was  roughly  estimated  to  contain  about  two  hun- 
dred thousand  men.  As  early  as  October  27,  1861, 
General  McClellan's  official  reports  to  the  Secretary 
of  War  showed  that  he  had  147,695  men  ready  for 
duty;  and  the  arriving  levies  almost  immediately 
available  would  increase  this  number  to  168,318. 
It  must  be  said  that  the  nucleus  of  this  great  army 
was  gathered  by  Lincoln,  who,  as  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States,  had 
strained  his  authority  to  the  utmost  to  collect  a 


320  Abraham  Lincoln 

force  for  the  defence  of  the  capital  and  to  serve  as  a 
framework  on  which  should  be  organized  a  large  and 
aggressive  fighting  army. 

His  general  plan,  adopted  after  much  anxious  con- 
sultation with  his  most  trusted  advisers,  was  as  fol- 
lows :  To  blockade  the  entire  coast -line  of  the  Rebel 
States ;  to  acquire  military  occupation  of  the  border 
States  so  as  to  protect  Union  men  and  repel  invasion ; 
to  clear  the  Mississippi  River  of  Rebel  obstructions, 
thus  dividing  the  Rebel  Confederacy  and  relieving  the 
West,  which  was  deprived  of  its  natural  outlet  to  the 
sea ;  to  destroy  the  Rebel  army  between  Washington 
and  Richmond  and  capture  the  Rebel  capital.  This 
vast  plan  had  been  formed  in  the  mind*of  Lincoln  by 
the  very  necessities  of  the  situation.  It  was  con- 
sidered and  brooded  over  while  preparations  for  its 
execution  were  being  made,  and  while  the  great 
questions  of  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  and  the 
confiscation  of  Rebel  property  were  also  under  con- 
sideration. If  we  remember  that  at  this  time,  also, 
the  foreign  relations  of  the  Government  were  strained, 
and  that  the  financial  resources  were  severely  taxed, 
we  shall  have  some  notion  of  the  prodigious  cares 
that  weighed  down  the  man  who,  far  into  the  morn- 
ing watch,  walked  the  lonely  corridors  of  the  White 
House,  thinking,  thinking,  while  others  slept. 

Early  in  November,  General  Scott,  who  held  the 
highest  command  in  the  army  of  the  United  States, 
having  been  offended  by  General  McClellan,  asked  to 
be  relieved  from  active  duty,  and  placed  on  the 
retired  list.  His  request  was  granted ;  and  Lincoln, 
accompanied  by  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  visited 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  321 

the  old  veteran  at  his  mansion  in  Washington,  and 
presented  to  him,  in  person,  a  most  affectionate  and 
generous  farewell  address.  Subsequently,  in  a  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  Lincoln  dwelt  with  warm  praise 
on  the  services  that  General  Scott  had  rendered  to 
the  country,  expressing  his  belief  that,  whatever 
could  be  done  to  reward  him,  the  nation  would  still 
be  in  debt  to  General  Scott.  McClellan  was  now  in 
supreme  command. 

Naturally,  Lincoln,  being  a  Western  man,  felt  the 
supreme  necessity  for  the  speedy  opening  of  the 
Mississippi  River.  The  strongest  and  most  numer- 
ous opponents  of  the  war  were  in  the  West,  and  their 
complaints  of  the  hardships  entailed  on  the  people, 
in  consequence  of  the  prolonged  hostilities,  seemed 
to  have  more  influence  than  in  the  Eastern  States, 
where  those  hardships  were  less  perceptible — per- 
haps less  real.  Lincoln's  anxiety  was  not  very  well 
appreciated  by  the  Eastern  people,  or  by  the  generals 
and  politicians  that  thronged  in  Washington.  When, 
in  course  of  time,  the  river  was  opened,  the  elation 
of  the  President  showed  itself  in  many  odd  expres- 
sions. He  gloried  in  the  fact  that  "the  Father  of 
Waters  went  un vexed  to  the  sea."  And,  in  a  mes- 
sage to  Congress,  greatly  to  the  scandal  of  some  of 
the  more  fastidious  of  his  friends,  he  referred  to  the 
gunboats  on  the  Mississippi  as  "Uncle  Sam's  web- 
feet,"  that  went  whither  they  chose.  But,  as  yet, 
all  this  was  unaccomplished. 

In  pursuance  of  his  programme,  General  U.  S. 
Grant,  then  rising  somewhat  in  the  popular  esteem, 
attacked  and  destroyed  Belmont,  a  military  depot  of 


322  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  Rebels,  in  Missouri;  General  Garfield  defeated 
Humphrey  Marshall  at  Middle  Creek,  Kentucky, 
and  General  George  H.  Thomas  defeated  Generals 
Zollikoffer  and  Crittenden  at  Mill  Spring,  in  the  same 
State.  These  victories  did  much  to  hem  the  Rebels 
within  the  lines  of  the  so-called  seceded  States,  and 
also  crippled  them  much.  This  was  followed  up  by 
the  capture  of  Fort  Henry,  on  the  Tennessee,  and 
Fort  Donelson,  on  the  Cumberland  River.  These 
streams,  emptying  into  the  Ohio  River,  were  very 
necessary  to  help  in  military  operations  against  the 
southwestern  Rebel  States.  The  forts  were  taken 
and  the  rivers  cleared  by  General  Grant,  commanding 
the  land  forces,  and  Admiral  Foote,  in  command  of  a 
fleet  of  "Uncle  Sam's  web-feet."  Fort  Donelson 
was  commanded  by  the  Rebel  Generals  Buckner  and 
Floyd,  the  latter  being  the  same  traitor  who,  as 
Secretary  of  War,  had  done  his  best  to  hamper  the 
Government  while  he  yet  held  office  under  President 
Buchanan.  The  Rebel  generals  asked  Grant  for  a 
parley  to  settle  terms  of  surrender.  To  this  Grant 
replied:  "No  terms  except  unconditional  surrender 
can  be  accepted.  I  propose  to  move  immediately 
on  your  works."  This  gave  Grant  his  popular  title 
of  "Unconditional  Surrender  Grant."  The  Rebels 
did  not  wait.  Floyd,  conscious  of  the  darkness  of  his 
guilt,  fled  in  the  night  with  a  small  force.  Buckner 
surrendered  twelve  thousand  prisoners  of  war  and 
much  material  for  fighting. 

This  was  in  February,  1862.  Kentucky  was  now 
cleared  of  Rebels,  and  Tennessee  was  opened  to  the 
occupation  of  the  Federal  forces.  Early  in  March, 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  323 

Gen.  S.  R.  Curtis  fought  the  battle  of  Pea  Ridge, 
and  the  Union  flag  was  once  more  floating  in  the 
State  of  Arkansas.  A  few  days  later,  General  John 
Pope  moved  down  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi,  and, 
by  a  series  of  successes,  yet  further  broke  the  armed 
opposition  to  the  progress  of  the  Federal  army  and 
the  gunboats.  On  the  6th  of  April,  1862,  was 
fought  the  great  and  terrible  battle  of  Shiloh,  or 
Pittsburgh  Landing,  in  which  the  carnage  on  both 
sides  was  awful,  and  many  brave  and  distinguished 
officers,  including  General  Albert  Sidney  Johnston, 
the  Rebel  commander,  were  killed.  The  defeated 
Rebels  were  sent  flying  to  their  fortified  line  at  Cor- 
inth, Miss.,  where  they  were  attacked  by  General 
Halleck,  driven  out,  and  compelled  to  retreat,  leaving 
behind  them,  in  their  precipitate  flight,  a  vast  accu- 
mulation of  military  stores.  Thus,  by  the  end  of 
May,  1862,  the  Rebels  saw  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Ken- 
tucky and  Tennessee  torn  from  their  grasp,  and  the 
United  States  flag  floating  once  more  over  these 
recovered  States. 

That  part  of  the  programme  which  required  the 
blockade  and  occupation  of  the  Atlantic  ports  of  the 
Rebel  States  was  not  overlooked  meanwhile.  During 
the  months  of  March  and  April,  1862,  Roanoke  Is- 
land, N.  C.,  was  captured  with  great  stores  of  arms 
and  ammunition  and  many  prisoners  by  Admiral 
Goldsborough  and  General  Burnside.  Newbern, 
N.  C.,  fell  next,  and  Fort  Pulaski  and  Fort  Macon, 
on  the  same  coast -line,  soon  followed  in  surrender. 
In  the  autumn  of  1861,  an  expedition  under  General 
B.  F.  Butler  landed  at  Ship  Island,  in  the  Gulf  of 


324  Abraham  Lincoln 

Mexico,  about  midway  between  New  Orleans  and 
Mobile.  A  fleet  of  armed  vessels  under  Admiral 
Farragut  soon  after  arrived,  and  on  the  i  yth  of  April 
Farragut  appeared  below  the  forts  that  guarded  the 
approaches  to  the  city  of  New  Orleans.  After  bom- 
barding these  impregnable  fortifications  for  several 
days,  the  gallant  Admiral  resolved  to  run  past  them. 
Making  due  and  skilful  preparations  for  the  desperate 
undertaking,  amid  a  storm  of  bombs  and  solid  shot 
Farragut  passed  the  forts,  and,  destroying  the  Rebel 
fleet  above  them,  ascended  the  Mississippi,  and  ap- 
peared before  New  Orleans,  to  the  amazement  and 
consternation  of  its  people.  Baton  Rouge,  the 
capital  of  Louisiana,  next  fell,  and  the  surrender  of 
Natchez,  May  i2th,  opened  the  Mississippi  as  far 
north  as  Vicksburg,  a  city  which,  with  its  fortifica- 
tions, now  remained  almost  the  sole  impediment  to 
the  free  navigation  of  the  Father  of  Waters. 

These  events,  here  noted  in  the  order  of  their 
happening,  were  scattered  over  several  months  in 
their  occurrence.  Grant  fought  the  battle  of  Bel- 
mont  in  November,  1861.  The  Mississippi  was  open 
as  far  as  Natchez  about  the  middle  of  May,  1862. 
Many  of  the  decisive  important  military  and  naval 
operations,  therefore,  were  undertaken  in  the  winter. 
But  May,  1862,  found  McClellan  still  inactive  before 
Washington.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  Lincoln,  be- 
sieged as  he  was  by  importunities  for  aggressive 
movement  by  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  commanded 
by  General  McClellan,  was  greatly  troubled  by  the 
sluggishness  of  that  large  and  costly  force?  The 
General's  headquarters  were  in  the  city  of  Washing- 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  325 

ton,  where  he  maintained  great  state,  surrounded  by 
a  large  and  brilliant  staff,  many  of  whom  were  gentle- 
men of  distinction,  American  and  foreign.  Here  was 
all  the  show  and  parade  of  war,  but  no  fighting.  In 
Washington,  too,  were  the  politicians  in  great  num- 
bers. The  former  successes  of  General  McClellan 
had  suggested  to  the  minds  of  many  that  he  would 
be  available  as  a  Presidential  candidate,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  that  idea  was  uppermost  in  the  mind 
of  the  General  himself.  As  he  was  conservative, 
and  opposed  to  the  policy  of  emancipation,  then 
actively  discussed  everywhere,  and  was  disposed  to 
regard  the  institution  of  slavery  as  something  too 
sacred  to  be  interfered  with  or  disregarded  in  the 
military  operations  then  on  foot,  he  was  naturally 
the  choice  of  the  Democratic  politicians. 

It  was  a  long  time  before  the  mass  of  the  people 
lost  their  faith  in  McClellan.  He  was  to  them  still 
the  "Young  Napoleon"  who  had  done  so  much  in  his 
earlier  campaigns  in  western  Virginia,  and  who,  it 
was  fondly  believed,  would  march  directly  upon 
Richmond,  when  he  should  once  determine  to  move. 
Meantime,  he  wanted  many  things  to  perfect  his 
army.  When  these  were  furnished,  he  found  that 
other  imperfections  were  to  be  removed.  People 
seemed  to  think  that  McClellan 's  inaction  was  due 
to  the  tardiness  with  which  the  Government  sup- 
plied his  necessary  wants.  Great  was  the  popular 
discontent.  It  would  appear  that  even  the  brilliant 
and  highly  important  successes  elsewhere  availed 
nothing  as  long  as  no  portentous  movement  was 
made  upon  Richmond.  "On  to  Richmond!"  was 


326  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  cry  of  the  Northern  newspapers  and  of  the 
politicians.  Washington  was  the  centre  toward 
which  the  active  elements  of  the  war  constantly 
tended.  Sooner  or  later,  it  appeared,  everybody 
went  to  Washington  during  the  progress  of  the  war. 
The  national  capital  was  not  only  a  vast  military 
camp,  it  was  the  place  where  offices  were  dispensed, 
where  the  friends  of  those  in  any  of  the  armies,  east 
or  west,  went  for  tidings  of  their  kin,  and  to  secure 
for  these  the  promotions  or  the  exchanges  desired. 
The  seat  of  government  always  attracts  a  prodigious 
concourse  of  people  from  every  rank  in  life.  Con- 
gressmen, ministers  to  foreign  countries,  newspaper 
correspondents,  and  the  infinite  variety  of  men  who 
make  and  mould  public  opinion,  all  were  there. 
These  all,  though  representing  every  section  of  the 
loyal  States,  clamored  for  active  operations  by  the 
vast  army  that  was  encamped  just  across  the 
Potomac  River,  opposite  Washington,  and  which 
filled  the  capital  with  its  gayly  uniformed  officers, 
and  with  showy  preparations  for  a  movement  that 
was  unaccountably  delayed. 

Lincoln  was  in  frequent  and  anxious  consultation 
with  General  McClellan  and  the  other  generals  and 
military  men  gathered  at  the  capital.  Lincoln, 
with  that  insatiate  desire  to  know  all  that  man  could 
know  by  hard  study,  read  all  the  books  on  war  and 
strategy  that  he  could  find,  and  speedily  mastered 
all  that  these  could  teach  him.  Far  into  the  night, 
when  the  ceaseless  importunities  of  those  who 
desired  audience  with  him  would  allow  him  an  hour 
or  two  of  seclusion,  he  pored  over  books  and  maps, 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  327 

plans  of  battles  and  sieges,  slowly  absorbing  the 
details  of  military  science,  as  he  had,  in  earlier  years 
in  the  backwoods,  grasped  the  parts  of  the  various 
knowledge  that  he  had  made  his  own.  McClellan 
regarded  all  this  with  some  contempt.  He  grew 
impatient  of  Lincoln's  questioning,  his  suggestions, 
and  his  visits.  For  the  President,  anxious  to  avoid 
taking  up  too  much  of  the  time  of  the  commander, 
refrained,  as  far  as  possible,  from  sending  for  the 
General  to  come  to  him.  The  President  humbly 
went  to  the  head-quarters  of  the  General  in  Washing- 
ton. On  one  occasion,  the  great  General  denied  him- 
self to  the  President  on  the  plea  that  he  was  too  busy 
with  his  staff  to  receive  him;  and  the  President, 
although  he  knew  that  the  great  man  was  taking  his 
luncheon  with  his  staff,  and  so  secluded  himself, 
showed  no  sign  of  anger  or  restiveness  at  this  rebuff. 
With  infinite  patience,  Lincoln  did  his  best  to  silence 
criticism  of  McClellan,  while  he  essayed  by  all  means 
in  his  power  to  induce  the  General  to  move  the  army, 
that,  like  a  vast  holiday-making  pageant,  still  ate 
and  drank,  marched  to  and  fro,  and  maintained  a 
brilliant  show  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac.  The 
only  sign  of  impatience  that  the  President  ever 
showed  was  once  when,  a  movement  seeming  im- 
possible, he  grimly  said:  "If  General  McClellan  has 
no  use  for  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  I  should  like  to 
borrow  it  for  a  little  while." 

Toward  the  latter  part  of  January,  1862,  Lincoln 
had  issued  an  order  specially  intended  to  direct  the 
movements  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  in  which, 
among  other  things,  the  army  was  commanded  to 


328  Abraham  Lincoln 

seize  upon  and  occupy  a  point  on  the  railroad  south- 
west of  Manassas  Junction.  The  details  of  this 
movement  were  to  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the 
general  commanding.  To  this  McClellan  demurred, 
and,  in  a  long  letter  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  he 
detailed  his  objections,  the  chief  of  which  was  that 
the  roads  would  be  bad  at  that  season  of  year. 
He  wished  that  the  movement,  if  it  were  undertaken, 
should  be  by  another  route — that  by  the  lower  Rap- 
pahannock,  the  base  of  supplies  being  at  the  small 
town  of  Urbana.  Upon  this  line  he  could  throw 
forward  somewhere  between  one  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  and  one  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
troops  of  various  arms.  In  reply,  the  President  ad- 
dressed a  letter  to  McClellan,  in  which  he  said  that 
he  would  gladly  yield  his  own  plan  to  that  of  the 
General  if  the  latter  would  give  a  satisfactory 
answer  to  the  following  questions : 

"i.  Does  not  your  plan  involve  a  greatly  larger  ex- 
penditure of  time  and  money  than  mine  ? 

"2.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  certain  by  your  plan 
than  mine? 

"3.  Wherein  is  a  victory  more  valuable  by  your  plan 
than  mine? 

"4.  In  fact,  would  it  not  be  less  valuable  in  this:  that 
it  would  break  no  great  line  of  the  enemy's  communica- 
tions, while  mine  would? 

"5.  In  case  of  disaster,  would  not  a  retreat  be  more 
difficult  by  your  plan  than  mine?" 

This  letter  was  ridiculed  by  some  of  the  military 
critics,  and  the  frequent  use  of  the  word  "plan" 
was  specially  the  butt  of  the  small  wits  of  the  day, 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  329 

who  recalled  Lincoln's  use  of  the  word  "spot"  in  his 
speech  on  the  President's  message  to  Congress  con- 
cerning the  Mexican  war,  while  Lincoln  was  in  Con- 
gress, years  before.  But  others  were  convinced  that 
the  good  sense  of  the  President  was  far  more  valuable 
than  the  masterly  inactivity  of  General  McClellan. 
The  General  again  demurred,  but  his  reply,  addressed 
to  the  Secretary  of  War,  and  not  to  the  President, 
was  not  satisfactory,  and  the  President  agreed  to 
submit  the  two  plans  to  a  council  of  war,  to  consist 
of  twelve  general  officers.  The  council  decided,  by  a 
vote  of  eight  to  four,  in  favor  of  McClellan's  plan, 
and  Lincoln  readily  acquiesced.  Information  of 
these  debates  having  reached  the  Rebels,  they  with- 
drew from  Manassas  to  the  farther  side  of  the  Rappa- 
hannock,  thereby  rendering  both  plans  useless.  By 
this  time,  two  weeks  had  elapsed  since  the  President's 
order  directing  a  general  advance  of  all  the  armies. 

After  the  enemy  had  abandoned  his  line  at  Ma- 
nassas, McClellan  moved  forward  for  a  day  or  two, 
but  almost  immediately  after  returned  to  his  in- 
trenched position  at  Alexandria,  on  the  Potomac, 
near  Washington.  He  found  that  every  possible  de- 
vice had  been  resorted  to  by  the  Rebels  to  exagger- 
ate their  formidable  appearance,  while  they  remained 
at  Centre ville,  near  Manassas,  wooden  guns  being 
among  these  appearances  of  defence  on  the  outworks. 
A  greatly  inferior  force  had  occupied  the  works  all 
winter,  while  McClellan,  distrustful  of  the  enemy,  had 
remained  quiet  on  the  banks  of  the  Potomac. 

To  add  to  Lincoln's  trials  and  burthens,  he  was  at 
this  time  visited  by  great  domestic  affliction.  His 


33°  Abraham  Lincoln 

two  younger  sons,  Willie  and  Thomas  (familiarly 
known  as  "Tad"),  were  stricken  by  disease.  The 
younger  of  the  two,  "Tad,"  finally  rallied  and  re- 
covered, but  Willie,  a  bright  and  beautiful  lad, 
about  eleven  years  old,  died,  after  a  few  days'  illness. 
The  blow  was  heavy  and  hard  to  bear.  Lincoln's 
sorrowful  vigil  by  the  bedside  of  the  dying  boy  was 
often  interrupted  that  he  might  consider  pressing 
military  events. 

General  McClellan  was  now  in  the  field,  and  on 
the  nth  of  March  he  was  relieved  from  command  of 
other  departments  of  military  activity,  and  was  left 
in  sole  and  immediate  command  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  of  which  he  said,  in  one  of  his  famous 
bulletins :  ' '  The  Army  of  the  Potomac  is  now  a  real 
army — magnificent  in  material,  admirable  in  dis- 
cipline, excellently  equipped  and  armed.  Your 
commanders  are  all  that  I  could  wish." 

The  change  of  front  by  the  Rebels  made  necessary 
a  change  of  the  base  of  operations  of  the  Federal 
forces,  and  a  council  of  war,  held  by  direction  of  the 
President,  decided  that  the  new  base  should  be  at 
Fortress  Monroe,  at  the  mouth  of  Chesapeake  Bay. 
In  the  meantime,  the  fight  between  the  iron-clad 
Rebel  Merrimac  and  the  Federal  Monitor  had  taken 
place  near  Fortress  Monroe,  the  former  having  been 
beaten  back  to  Norfolk,  where  she  had  been  built  at 
the  abandoned  Federal  navy-yard  from  the  hull  of  a 
frigate.  The  new  plan  of  operations  proposed  cer- 
tain conditions  that  should  keep  the  Rebel  ram  in 
check.  It  also  proposed  that  a  force  large  enough  to 
protect  Washington  should  be  left  near  Manassas. 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  331 

A  great  fleet  of  transports  was  provided  for  Mc- 
Clellan  to  move  his  troops,  in  case  any  new  base,  or 
other  change  of  plan,  should  be  deemed  necessary. 
There  was  much  alarm  felt  in  Washington  as  to  the 
smallness  of  the  force  left  for  the  defence  of  the 
national  capital,  but  McClellan,  in  his  anxiety  to 
collect  an  immense  army  for  his  offensive  operations, 
was  not  inclined  to  spare  a  larger  force  for  defensive 
purposes.  His  immediate  field  of  operations  was  on 
the  peninsula  formed  by  the  York  and  James  Rivers. 
The  enemy  were  behind  a  line  of  intrenchments  that 
stretched  across  the  peninsula,  the  key  of  the  situa- 
tion being  Yorktown,  on  this  line.  McClellan  unac- 
countably delayed  any  active  operations  against  this 
line  of  defence.  On  the  3d  of  April,  the  President 
ordered  the  Secretary  of  War  to  direct  McClellan  to 
begin  active  operations;  but  he  demurred,  and  said 
to  the  President,  in  a  letter  dated  on  the  5th  of  that 
month,  that  he  was  sure  that  the  enemy  was  in  large 
force  in  front  of  him,  beh  nd  formidable  works.  He 
added:  "I  am  of  the  opinion  I  shall  have  to  fight  all 
the  available  force  of  the  Rebels  not  far  from  here." 
He  wanted  more  men. 

Lincoln  was  overwhelmed  and  in  despair  at  this 
delay,  so  inexplicable  and  apparently  so  inexcusable. 
He  was  confident  that  General  McClellan  exaggerated 
the  strength  of  the  force  in  front  of  him,  and  he 
besought  Secretary  Stanton  to  hurry  forward  every- 
thing that  McClellan  seemed  to  think  needful  to  in- 
sure the  safety  of  an  advance  of  the  Federal  army. 
It  afterwards  transpired  that  the  Rebel  force  was 
only  about  9300  effective  men.  In  a  report  sub- 


332  Abraham  Lincoln 

sequently  made  to  the  Richmond  government,  by 
the  Rebel  General  Magruder,  he  said:  "With  five 
thousand  men,  exclusive  of  the  garrisons,  we  stopped 
and  held  in  check  over  one  hundred  thousand  of  the 
enemy.  To  my  surprise,  he  [McClellan]  permitted 
day  after  day  to  elapse  without  any  assault." 

The  line  held  by  the  Rebels  was  about  thirteen 
miles  long.  Much  of  the  force  behind  that  line  was 
scattered  to  defend  points  in  the  rear.  McClellan, 
with  his  one  hundred  thousand  men,  sat  down 
deliberately  and  began,  with  shovels  and  picks,  a 
regular  siege.  On  the  gth  of  April,  1862,  Lincoln 
wrote  him  a  letter  full  of  kindly  feeling,  but  remon- 
strating with  him  for  his  unaccountable  reluctance 
to  move.  The  following  extracts  will  show  the  gentle- 
ness and  admirable  temper  of  the  President : 

"  I  suppose  the  whole  force  which  has  gone  forward  to 
you  is  with  you  by  this  time,  and  if  so,  I  think  that  it  is 
the  precise  time  for  you  to  strike  a  blow.  By  delay,  the 
enemy  will  relatively  gain  upon  you — that  is,  he  will  gain 
faster  by  fortifications  and  reinforcements  than  you  can 
by  reinforcements  alone ;  and  once  more  let  me  tell  you, 
it  is  indispensable  to  you  that  you  strike  a  blow.  I  am 
powerless  to  help  this.  You  will  do  me  the  justice  to 
remember  I  always  insisted  that  going  down  the  bay  in 
search  of  a  field,  instead  of  fighting  near  Manassas,  was 
only  shifting,  not  surmounting,  the  difficulty.  .  .  . 
The  country  will  not  fail  to  note — and  it  is  now  noting — 
that  the  present  hesitation  to  move  upon  an  intrenched 
enemy  is  but  the  story  of  Manassas  repeated.  I  beg  to 
assure  you  I  have  never  written  ,  .  .  in  greater 
kindness,  nor  with  a  fuller  purpose  to  sustain  you,  so  far 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  333 

as  in  my  most  anxious  judgment  I  consistently  can.     But 
you  must  act." 

In  answer  to  McClellan's  importunate  call  for  more 
troops,  the  President  yielded  and  sent  him  General 
Franklin's  division,  which  had  been  retained  to 
defend  the  line  between  Richmond  and  Washington. 
So,  on  the  i3th  of  April,  McClellan's  army,  according 
to  official  reports,  had  130,378  men,  of  whom  112,392 
were  effective.  According  to  McClellan's  letters  to 
the  War  Department,  he  was  now  "confident  of 
results,"  and  was  "getting  up  the  heavy  guns, 
mortars,  and  ammunition  quite  rapidly."  Still  he 
complained  of  "heavy  rains  and  horrid  roads,"  but 
he  was  "making  progress  all  the  time,"  and  soon 
would  "be  at  them."  At  this  time,  too,  he  called 
for  Parrott  guns,  to  the  infinite  consternation  of  the 
President,  who  wrote  him,  on  the  ist  of  May:  "Your 
call  for  Parrott  guns  from  Washington  alarms  me — 
chiefly  because  it  argues  indefinite  procrastination. 
Is  anything  to  be  done?" 

Nothing  was  done,  and,  on  the  25th  of  May,  Lin- 
coln telegraphed  to  McClellan:  "I  think  the  time  is 
near  at  hand  when  you  must  either  attack  Richmond 
or  give  up  the  job,  and  come  to  the  defence  of  Wash- 
ington . ' '  Meanwhile ,  the  Rebels ,  disconcerted  by  the 
arrival  of  fresh  troops,  and  beginning  to  fear  an 
attack,  abandoned  their  line  across  the  peninsula 
and  retreated  up  to  their  second  line  of  works.  On 
the  2ist  of  June,  McClellan, from  his  camp  in  the  field, 
wrote  to  the  President,  asking  permission  to  address 
him  on  the  subject  of  "the  present  state  of  military 


334  Abraham  Lincoln 

affairs  throughout  the  whole  country."  The  Presi- 
dent, with  his  unfailing  good-nature,  replied:  "If  it 
would  not  divert  your  time  and  attention  from  the 
army  under  your  command,  I  should  be  glad  to  hear 
your  views  on  the  present  state  of  military  affairs 
throughout  the  whole  country." 

Another  cause  of  disagreement  between  Lincoln 
and  McClellan  was  the  organization  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac  into  corps.  The  corps  were  not  of 
McClellan 's  choosing.  He  applied  to  the  Secretary 
of  War  for  permission  to  suspend  the  organization 
and  to  reorganize  them.  It  was  well  known  that  the 
three  corps  commanders,  Sumner,  Heintzelman,  and 
Keyes,  were  not  favorites  with  General  McClellan. 
His  plan  of  reorganization  was  to  drop  them  out  of 
their  commands.  On  this  point  Lincoln  wrote  to 
McClellan,  and,  in  a  very  frank  and  friendly  letter, 
expressed  his  opinion  of  McClellan's  new  scheme. 
He  said,  among  other  things : 

"  I  ordered  the  army-corps  organization  not  only  on  the 
unanimous  opinion  of  twelve  generals  of  division,  but  also 
on  the  unanimous  opinion  of  every  military  man  I  could 
get  an  opinion  from,  and  every  modern  military  book, 
yourself  only  excepted.  Of  course,  I  did  not,  on  my  own 
judgment,  pretend  to  understand  the  subject.  I  now 
think  it  indispensable  for  you  to  know  how  your  struggle 
against  it  is  regarded  in  quarters  which  we  cannot  entirely 
disregard.  It  is  looked  upon  as  merely  an  effort  to  pam- 
per one  or  two  pets,  and  to  persecute  and  degrade  their 
supposed  rivals.  I  have  no  word  from  Sumner,  Heintzel- 
man, or  Keyes.  The  commanders  of  these  corps  are,  of 
course,  the  highest  officers  with  you.  But  I  am  constantly 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  335 

told  that  you  have  no  consultation  or  communication 
with  them,  that  you  consult  and  communicate  with 
nobody  but  Fitz  John  Porter,  and  perhaps  General  Frank- 
lin. I  do  not  say  that  these  complaints  are  true  or  just ; 
but,  at  all  events,  it  is  proper  that  you  should  know  of 
their  existence." 

After  the  receipt  of  this  letter,  McClellan  decided 
not  to  make  the  change  in  the  organization  of  the 
army  which  he  had,  up  to  that  time,  urged  was  very 
essential.  He  created  two  additional  and  "pro- 
visional" corps,  one  of  which  was  to  be  commanded 
by  Fitz  John  Porter  and  the  other  by  Franklin,  the 
two  generals  whom  Lincoln  had  mentioned  as  "pets  " 
to  be  pampered  at  the  expense  of  their  supposed 
rivals. 

It  was  during  a  brief  sojourn  at  Fortress  Monroe 
that  an  affecting  incident  then  occurred.  One  day 
Lincoln,  to  beguile  the  tedium  of  waiting,  took  up  a 
volume  of  his  favorite,  Shakespeare,  and  read  aloud 
to  General  Wool's  aide,  Colonel  Cannon,  who 
chanced  to  be  near  him,  several  passages  from 
Hamlet  and  Macbeth;  then,  after  reading  from 
the  third  act  of  King  John,  he  closed  the  book  and 
recalled  the  lament  of  Constance  for  her  boy,  begin- 
ning: 

"  And,  Father  Cardinal,  I  have  heard  you  say 
That  we  shall  see  and  know  our  friends  in  heaven. 
If  that  be  true,  I  shall  see  my  boy  again." 

The  words,  he  said,  had  reminded  him  of  the  many 
times  when,  as  in  a  vision,  he  seemed  to  see  his  lost 


336  Abraham  Lincoln 

boy  near  him;  yet  he  knew  the  dream  must  fade. 
So  saying,  he  bowed  his  face  in  his  hands  and  silently 
wept. 

To  go  back  a  little  in  this  chapter  of  military 
history,  in  which  Lincoln  was  so  deeply  interested. 
On  account  of  the  Rebel  occupation  of  Norfolk,  and 
the  dread  of  the  Rebel  ram  Merrimac,  lying  there 
ready  for  a  sortie  at  any  time,  the  line  of  the  James 
River  was  impracticable  for  Federal  naval  vessels. 
The  capture  of  Norfolk  and  the  destruction  of  the 
ram  were  indispensable.  The  President  went  to 
Fortress  Monroe,  and,  after  a  consultation  with 
General  Wool,  there  commanding,  an  expedition  was 
fitted  out  against  Norfolk.  As  Lincoln  subsequently 
related  to  General  Garfield  how  this  was  an  effectual 
movement,  the  account  written  by  Garfield  may  as 
well  be  transcribed  here : 

"  By  the  way,  Garfield,  do  you  know  that  Chase,  Stan- 
ton,  General  Wool,  and  I  had  a  campaign  of  our  own? 
We  went  down  to  Fortress  Monroe  in  Chase's  revenue 
cutter,  and  consulted  with  Admiral  Goldsborough  on  the 
feasibility  of  taking  Norfolk  by  landing  on  the  north  shore 
and  making  a  march  of  eight  miles.  The  Admiral  said 
there  was  no  landing  on  that  shore,  and  we  should  have 
to  double  the  cape,  and  approach  the  place  from  the  south 
side,  which  would  be  a  long  journey  and  a  difficult  one. 
I  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  tried  to  find  a  landing,  and  he 
replied  that  he  had  not.  I  then  told  him  a  story  of  a  fel- 
low in  Illinois  who  had  studied  law,  but  had  never  tried  a 
case.  He  was  sued,  and,  not  having  confidence  in  his 
ability  to  manage  his  own  case,  employed  a  lawyer  to 
manage  it  for  him.  He  had  only  a  confused  idea  of  the 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  337 

meaning  of  law  terms,  but  was  anxious  to  make  a  display 
of  learning,  and,  on  the  trial,  constantly  made  suggestions 
to  his  lawyer,  who  paid  but  little  attention  to  him.  At 
last,  fearing  that  his  lawyer  was  not  handling  the  oppos- 
ing counsel  very  well,  he  lost  all  his  patience,  and  springing 
to  his  feet  cried  out :  '  Why  don't  you  go  at  him  with  a 
capias  or  a  sur-rebutter  or  something,  and  not  stand  there 
like  a  confounded  old  nudumpactum ? '  '  Now,  Admiral,' 
said  I,  'if  you  don't  know  that  there  is  no  landing  on  the 
north  shore,  I  want  you  to  find  out.'  The  Admiral  took 
the  hint ;  and  taking  Chase  and  Wool  along,  with  a  com- 
pany or  two  of  marines,  he  went  on  a  voyage  of  discovery, 
and  Stan  ton  and  I  remained  at  Fortress  Monroe.  That 
night  we  went  to  bed,  but  not  to  sleep,  for  we  were  very 
anxious  for  the  fate  of  the  expedition.  About  two  o'clock 
the  next  morning  I  heard  the  heavy  tread  of  Wool  ascend- 
ing the  stairs.  I  went  out  into  the  parlor  and  found 
Stanton  hugging  Wool  in  the  most  enthusiastic  manner, 
as  he  announced  that  he  had  found  a  landing  and  had 
captured  Norfolk." 

The  greater  part  of  the  month  of  June,  1862,  was 
spent  by  the  army  under  McClellan  in  fighting,  ad- 
vancing, retreating,  and  in  various  manoeuvres  not 
readily  understood,  even  at  this  distance  of  time. 
At  one  time  a  portion  of  the  troops  was  within  four 
miles  of  Richmond  without  meeting  any  considerable 
force  of  the  enemy.  The  Rebels  had  sent  reinforce- 
ments to  that  part  of  their  army  that  was  threatening 
Washington,  and,  alarmed  by  these  demonstrations 
on  the  peninsula,  they  began  to  collect  troops  to 
worry  McClellan,  whose  failure  to  attempt  any  seri- 
ous attack  was  to  them  inexplicable.  On  the  27th 
of  June  he  announced  his  intention  to  retreat  to 


338  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  James  River,  and,  in  an  extraordinary  letter 
to  the  Secretary  of  War,  he  said:  "If  I  save  this 
army,  I  tell  you  plainly  I  owe  you  no  thanks,  nor 
to  any  one  at  Washington.  You  have  done  your 
best  to  destroy  this  army." 

Lincoln  was  greatly  disturbed  by  the  insulting 
and  unjust  tone  of  this  despatch.  It  was  a  severe 
tax  on  his  patience  to  be  told  by  a  subordinate  officer 
that  he,  the  President,  who  had  strained  all  the 
resources  at  his  command  to  meet  the  demands  of 
McClellan,  had  virtually  done  nothing  for  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  The  army,  harassed  by  the  Rebel 
forces  hanging  on  its  rear,  and  occasionally  turning 
at  bay,  retreated  to  Malvern  Hill,  and  the  ignoble 
campaign  of  the  peninsula  was  over. 

By  this  time  it  had  been  understood  by  the  politi- 
cians of  the  Northern  States  that  McClellan  was  the 
candidate  of  that  portion  of  the  Democratic  party 
which  was  dissatisfied  with  the  war  and  with  the 
emancipation  measures  then  under  contemplation. 
Accordingly,  on  the  7th  of  July,  writing  to  the 
President  from  Harrison's  Landing,  McClellan  ad- 
dressed Lincoln  at  great  length,  not  on  the  general 
conduct  of  the  war,  but  upon  the  general  conduct  of 
the  administration.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind 
that  McClellan  was  yet  a  young  man,  not  thirty-seven 
years  of  age.  Excepting  his  brief  and  spirited  cam- 
paign in  western  Virginia,  he  had  had  no  active 
military  experience,  but,  as  a  civil  and  military 
engineer,  he  had  seen  service.  He  had  had  very 
little  to  do  with,  politics  or  statesmanship,  and  had 
gained  his  highest  renown  as  the  president  of  a  rail- 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  339 

road  corporation  before  the  war  began.  But  he  had 
now  the  temerity'  to  offer  advice  and  instruction  to 
President  Lincoln  and  his  Cabinet,  and  to  solve,  in  his 
camp  on  the  James,  problems  in  statecraft  that 
seemed  to  the  wisest  men  in  the  world  almost  im- 
possible of  solution. 

To  Lincoln  he  said :  ' '  Let  neither  military  disaster, 
political  faction,  nor  foreign  war  shake  your  settled 
purpose  to  enforce  the  equal  operation  of  the  laws 
upon  the  people  of  every  State."  Then,  after  ad- 
vising him  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  war,  the  General 
said:  "Neither  confiscation  of  property,  political 
executions  of  persons,  territorial  organizations  of 
States,  or  forcible  abolition  of  slavery  should  be 
contemplated  for  one  moment."  Then,  as  if  by  way 
of  threat,  he  said  that  unless  his  views  "should  be 
made  known  and  approved,  the  effort  to  obtain  the 
requisite  forces  will  be  almost  hopeless.  A  declara- 
tion of  radical  views,  especially  upon  slavery,  will 
rapidly  disintegrate  our  present  armies." 

This  amazing  communication,  addressed  to  the 
President  from  a  general  who  had  just  shown  his  in- 
competence to  command  an  army  engaged  in  offen- 
sive operations,  did  not  anger  the  patient  and 
much-enduring  President.  He  was  discouraged  and 
profoundly  depressed.  Possibly  he  would  have  re- 
moved McClellan  at  this  time,  as  he  was  importuned 
to  do  by  many  who  reflected  the  impatience  of  the 
whole  country  at  the  dilatoriness  that  had  char- 
acterized the  operations  against  the  Rebel  capital  and 
its  lines  of  communication.  In  order  to  see  for  him- 
self what  was  the  condition  of  the  army,  Lincoln 


34°  Abraham  Lincoln 

visited  the  head-quarters  of  General  McClellan  at 
Harrison's  Landing,  on  the  yth  of  July.  Guided  by 
the  General,  he  examined  the  rosters  of  the  troops, 
the  reports  of  the  chiefs  of  divisions,  and  the  records 
which  showed  the  effectiveness  of  the  forces  under 
the  command  of  General  McClellan.  It  was  the 
President's  judgment  that  the  army  should  be 
recalled  to  Washington,  and  in  this  conclusion  he 
was  supported  by  the  corps  commanders.  To  this 
McClellan  was  opposed.  He  was  unwilling  to  aban- 
don the  campaign  so  auspiciously  begun  and  so 
ignobly  concluded.  He  wanted  Burnside's  army, 
then  operating  in  North  Carolina,  sent  to  him;  and, 
with  large  reinforcements,  he  was  confident  of 
achieving  success,  although  it  was  now  evident  that 
he  had  failed  more  than  once  to  take  advantage  of  the 
chances  offered  him  to  assault  Richmond  on  this 
line  of  attack. 

Returning  to  Washington,  and  calling  for  the 
records  of  the  War  Department  that  showed  the 
number  of  troops  sent  to  McClellan  in  answer  to  his 
importunate  demands,  Lincoln  found  that  McClellan 
had  had  one  hundred  and  sixty  thousand  men  with 
him.  He  wrote  to  the  General  reminding  him  of  this 
fact,  and  of  the  other  fact  that  when  he  visited  the 
General,  a  few  days  before,  he  found  that  there  were 
only  eighty-six  thousand  effective  men  on  duty. 
Making  liberal  allowance  for  death  by  disease  and  in 
battle,  and  for  the  sick  and  wounded,  fifty  thousand 
men  yet  remained  to  be  accounted  for.  Where  were 
these  fifty  thousand?  In  reply,  McClellan  said 
38,250  men  were  absent  "by  authority."  And  yet 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  341 

McClellan  complained  of  his  lack  of  men,  and  of  the 
failure  to  give  him  the  army  of  Burnside,  or  of  some 
other  general,  operating  in  other  and  more  distant 
parts  of  the  Republic. 

Lincoln  felt  the  need  of  a  military  adviser  who 
should  be  always  at  hand  and  readily  accessible. 
The  successes  of  the  generals  in  the  western  part  of 
the  Republic,  contrasting  as  they  did  with  the 
humiliating  failures  of  the  campaigns  around  Wash- 
ington and  in  Virginia,  suggested  the  designation  of 
some  one  of  these  men  to  the  post  to  be  created. 
General  H.  W,  Halleck  accordingly  was  called  to 
Washington,  on  the  nth  of  July,  with  the  rank  and 
title  of  General-in-Chief.  Another  Western  general 
called  to  the  East  was  General  John  Pope,  whose  suc- 
cesses in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  had  given  him 
fame.  General  Pope  took  command  of  a  new  military 
organization  of  three  army  corps  commanded  by 
Generals  Fremont,  Banks,  and  McDowell.  This 
was  known  as  the  Army  of  Virginia,  and  its  creation 
was  naturally  regarded  by  McClellan  and  his  partisans 
with  jealousy,  a  jealousy  that  was  heightened  by  an 
intemperate  and  indiscreet  address  issued  by  Pope 
on  taking  command.  In  this  address,  Pope  assumed 
a  tone  of  confidence  and  boasting  that  was  appar- 
ently designed  to  contrast  the  deeds  he  proposed  to 
do  with  the  failures  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  This 
aroused  an  intense  and  bitter  hostility  among  the  offi- 
cers of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  and  greatly  vexed 
and  disappointed  Lincoln,  who,  from  that  moment, 
was  apprehensive  that  Pope  would  raise  up  enemies 
against  himself  and  impair  his  usefulness  as  a  soldier. 


342  Abraham  Lincoln 

On  the  28th  of  June,  1862,  there  assembled  at 
Altoona,  Penn.,  the  famous  conference  of  loyal 
governors.  It  was  a  meeting  of  the  governors  of 
seventeen  States  to  confer  on  the  best  means  for 
supporting  the  President  in  carrying  on  the  war. 
They  united  in  an  address  to  the  President,  assuring 
him  of  the  readiness  of  the  States  to  respond  to  calls 
for  more  troops,  and  to  support  the  most  vigorous 
measures  for  carrying  on  the  war.  Thereupon  the 
President  issued  a  call  for  three  hundred  thousand 
men.  Notwithstanding  defeats  and  reverses,  delays 
and  sluggishness,  the  spirit  of  the  country  was  un- 
broken. It  was  felt  that  this  was  a  struggle  for  life 
or  death. 

Pope's  command,  numbering  thirty-eight  thousand 
men,  was  employed  to  defend  Washington,  against 
which  point  Lee  was  now  advancing  with  a  large 
force  of  the  Rebels.  Pope  was  also  to  hold  the  valley 
of  the  Shenandoah,  in  which  active  and  aggressive 
squadrons  of  Rebel  cavalry  were  manoeuvring.  If 
McClellan  now  made  a  bold  attack  on  Richmond 
from  his  position  on  the  James,  Lee's  attention  would 
be  diverted  from  Pope,  and  keep  him  on  the  defensive. 
But  McClellan,  it  was  evident,  could  not  be  expected 
to  execute  any  such  movement.  The  Army  of  the 
Potomac  was,  accordingly,  ordered  to  the  line  of  the 
Potomac,  to  support  Pope.  The  situation  was  full 
of  peril.  Lee's  army  was  being  massed  to  crush 
Pope,  before  he  could  be  reinforced  by  McClellan, 
whose  forces  were  in  Virginia,  farther  from  Washing- 
ton than  were  Lee's.  McClellan  was  repeatedly 
ordered  to  make  haste.  He  delayed  and  dallied,  as 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  343 


if  sullen  and  unwilling  to  obey  orders.  On  the 
of  July  he  was  ordered  to  send  away  his  sick  and  pre- 
pare for  his  return  to  the  Potomac.  He  waited,  and 
on  the  3d  of  August  he  was  directed  to  move  'his  army 
to  Acquia  Creek,  a  small  stream  emptying  into  the 
Potomac  below  Washington.  He  remonstrated  and' 
said  he  would  obey  "as  soon  as  circumstances  would 
permit."  Again,  on  the  gth  of  the  month,  General 
Halleck,  at  the  direction  of  the  President,  admon- 
ished McClellan  of  the  dangers  that  menaced  Pope, 
and  told  him  that  he  must  move  with  all  possible 
celerity.  Next  day  Halleck  telegraphed  McClellan 
that  the  .Rebels  had  crossed  the  Rapidan  and  were 
attacking  Pope;  and  he  added:  "There  must  be  no 
further  delay  in  your  movements.".  Still  the  tardy 
and  slow-moving  McClellan  did  not  respond.  Fi- 
nally, on  the  23d  of  August,  he  sailed  from  Fortress 
Monroe,  arriving  at  Acquia  Creek  on  the  following 
day,  and  at  Alexandria  on  the  Potomac  on  the 
2  yth,  nearly  one  month  after  receiving  his  orders. 

Meanwhile,  Pope  was  being  driven  towards  Wash- 
ington, assailed  in  turn  by  the  Rebel  forces  under 
Jackson,  Longstreet,  and  Lee.  Not  one  of  McClel- 
lan's  trusted  and  favorite  lieutenants  came  to  Pope's 
relief,  although  they  were  within  supporting  dis- 
tance. Fitz  John  Porter  heard  the  guns  of  the 
hardly  pressed  Pope,  as  well  as  those  of  the  Rebel 
army  assailing  him  ;  he  knew  the  desperate  condition 
of  the  Army  of  Virginia.  He  refused  to  go  to  its 
relief.  For  this  he  was  tried  by  a  military  court, 
found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to  be  dismissed  from  the 
army.  The  President  approved  this  sentence. 


344  Abraham  Lincoln 

Pope  was  driven  back  upon  Washington.  His 
humiliation  was  complete.  The  army  was  torn  by 
dissensions  and  cabals.  Party  spirit  ran  high,  not 
only  in  Congress  and  in  the  country,  but  in  the  camps 
around  Washington  and  in  Virginia.  In  the  field 
were  disaster  and  defeat;  in  the  Cabinet,  divided 
counsels;  and  in  Congress,  virulent  and  heated  de- 
bate, and  a  growing  opposition  to  the  war,  with,  now 
and  again,  a  recommendation  that  terms  for  peace 
be  offered  to  the  Rebel  Government.  It  was  a  dark 
and  gloomy  time.  Lincoln,  alone  in  his  sublime 
trust  in  God  and  in  the  righteousness  of  the  cause 
of  the  Federal  Union,  did  not  hesitate  to  manifest 
his  unshaken  belief  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of  the 
Federal  arms  and  in  the  power  of  the  people  to  quell 
the  slaveholders'  rebellion.  Men  who  listened  to 
him,  in  those  days  of  peril,  went  away  marvelling  at 
his  patience,  fortitude,  and  courage. 

Once  more  McClellan  had  an  opportunity  offered 
him  to  achieve  a  great  success.  Yielding  to  what 
seemed  a  military  necessity,  Lincoln  placed  him  at 
the  head  of  a  newly  reorganized  army.  He  now  had 
under  him  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  the  remnants 
of  Pope's  Army  of  Virginia,  and  the  forces  brought 
from  North  Carolina ^by  General  Burnside.  To  these 
were  added  reinforcements  from  the  raw  levies, 
making  the  force  under  McClellan  the  largest  that 
had  ever  been  massed  together  in  one  army — more 
than  two  hundred  thousand,  all  told.  If  ever  "the 
young  Napoleon"  was  to  win  laurels,  this  was  his 
time  and  opportunity.  But  he  seemed  impatient 
and  discontented  that  any  troops  should  be  under 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  345 

a  command  separate  from  his  own.  He  wished  that 
the  force  retained  in  the  defence  of  Washington 
should  be  sent  to  him,  saying  that  the  capture  of 
Washington  would  not  be  so  great  a  calamity  to  the 
country  as  a  single  defeat  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac. 
He  asked  that  the  twelve  thousand  troops  holding 
Harper's  Ferry  should  be  sent  to  him,  and  when  told 
that  if  he  would  open  communications  with  that 
point,  Harper's  Ferry  would  be  included  in  his  com- 
mand, he  failed  to  take  the  necessary  steps,  although 
he  knew  that  a  Rebel  force  was  marching  against 
Harper's  Ferry.  He  delayed,  did  not  seize  the  pre- 
cious opportunity  to  strike  at  Lee's  army  while  it 
was  divided,  and  did  not  relieve  Harper's  Ferry, 
which,  on  the  i$th  of  September,  surrendered  to  the 
Rebels. 

Lee,  meantime,  was  advancing  into  Maryland,  and 
it  became  absolutely  imperative  that  he  should  be 
checked.  McClellan,  finally  roused,  but  one  day  too 
late,  attacked  Lee,  and  the  bloody  battle  of  Antie- 
tam  was  fought,  September  lyth.  The  Rebels  were 
thoroughly  whipped,  and  began  a  sullen  retreat 
across  the  Potomac.  It  would  appear  that  Mc- 
Clellan might  have  followed,  one  entire  corps  of  his 
army  not  having  been  in  the  fight.  But  he  remained 
where  he  was,  and  called  for  more  reinforcements. 
This  amazing  demand,  following  the  delay  to  move, 
alarmed  the  President,  and  he  made  a  personal  visit 
to  the  army  to  see  for  himself  how  affairs  stood.  On 
his  return  to  Washington  he  issued  an  order,  dated 
October  6,  1862,  through  General  Halleck,  directing 
McClellan  to  "cross  the  Potomac  and  give  battle  to 


•      Abraham  Lincoln 

the  enemy  or  drive  him  south."  This  order  McClel- 
lan  declined  to  obey.  On  the  loth  of  that  month, 
J.  E.  B.  Stuart,  a  dashing  Rebel  cavalry  officer, 
crossed  the  Potomac,  going  as  far  north  as  Cham- 
bersburg,  Penn.,  which  he  raided,  and  made  the  en- 
tire circuit  of  McClellan's  army  before  he  recrossed 
into  Virginia. 

A  few  days  after  this  daring  exploit,  which  McClel- 
lan  had  confidently  predicted  would  end  in  his 
"bagging"  the  whole  of  Stuart's  command,  Lincoln 
wrote  a  long  and  friendly  letter  to  McClellan,  in 
which  he  begged  for  a  forward  movement,  arguing 
the  case  from  a  military  point  of  view  with  much 
acuteness.  Still  McClellan  did  not  move.  He  com- 
plained that  his  horses  were  fatigued  and  had  the 
sore  tongue.  Lincoln  could  not  help  asking  what 
his  cavalry  had  done  since  the  battle  of  Antietam, 
fought  more  than  a  month  before,  that  they  should 
be  fatigued.  McClellan  showed  that  he  resented 
this  home  thrust,  and  Lincoln,  ready  to  plead  his 
own  desire  to  be  exactly  just,  wrote  to  the  General 
to  say  that  he  was  very  sorry  if  he  had  done  the 
General  any  injustice.  He  added,  however:  "To  be 
told,  after  five  weeks'  total  inactivity  of  the  army, 
and  during  which  period  we  had  sent  to  that  army 
every  fresh  horse  we  possibly  could,  amounting  in  the 
whole  to  7918,  that  the  cavalry  horses  were  too  much 
fatigued  to  move,  presented  a  cheerless,  almost  hope- 
less, prospect  for  the  future."  It  may  be  added  to 
this  that  the  winter  was  now  close  at  hand,  when  ac- 
tive operations  in  the  field,  always  difficult,  would  be 
impossible  under  McClellan's  command. 


A  Difficult  Military  Situation  347 

Finally,  on  the  5th  of  November,  1862,  just  one 
month  after  the  order  to  cross  had  been  issued,  the 
army  did  cross  the  Potomac.  By  this  time,  of  course, 
the  Rebels,  recovering  from  their  defeat  at  Antietam, 
were  ready  for  battle  or  for  a  retreat.  It  was  too  late. 
General  McClellan  was  relieved  from  command  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  on  the  5th  of  November,  and 
was  ordered  to  Trenton,  New  Jersey.  His  military 
career  was  closed,  and  we  hear  no  more  of  him  until 
he  emerged,  in  1864,  as  the  Presidential  candidate  of 
the  Democratic  party. 

This  long  and  interesting  chapter  of  military  history 
is  valuable  as  showing  forth  th  patience,  forbearance, 
and  sagacity  of  Lincoln.  Again  and  again,  he  was 
urged  by  the  impatient  and  fiery  spirits  around  him 
to  remove  McClellan,  and  subject  him  to  trial  by  court- 
martial  for  disobedience  of  orders.  Even  those  who 
did  not  advise  these  extreme  measures  with  the  Gen- 
eral, counselled  the  President  to  withdraw  McClellan 
from  command.  But  Lincoln  knew  that  many  of  the 
subordinate  commanders  in  the  Army  of  the  Potomac 
were  warm  champions  of  McClellan's  military  genius, 
believers  in  his  mysterious  power  to  win  great  victo- 
ries. They  would  support  any  other  commander  with 
lukewarmness,  if  they  supported  him  at  all.  There 
was  no  such  rigid  and  severe  discipline  in  the  Union 
army  as  exists  in  the  military  organizations  of  Eu- 
ropean states.  Military  councils  were  something  in 
the  nature  of  condensed  town  meetings.  The  rank 
and  file,  maintained  an  exchange  of  sentiment  and 
judgment  that  corresponded  exactly  to  the  public 
opinion  of  towns,  cities,  and  other  communities.  The 


348  Abraham  Lincoln 

country  was  slow  to  give  up  its  faith  in  the  young 
General,  who,  in  the  very  opening  of  the  war,  achieved 
military  successes  in  western  Virginia  and  won  for 
himself  a  name  before  other  men  had  had  a  chance 
to  distinguish  themselves.  Lincoln  was  reluctant  to 
rouse  animosities  and  harsh  judgments  by  a  removal 
of  McClellan  while  he  yet  had  a  chance  to  retrieve 
himself.  He  remained  to  encourage  popular  and 
military  confidence.  It  was  not  until  McClellan  had, 
so  to  speak,  worn  out  his  reputation,  that  he  was 
removed. 


CHAPTER  XXIII. 


THE   TURNING   OF   THE   TIDE. 

The  Battle  of  Fredericksburg  —  Rise  of  the  Peace  Party  —  Factions  in 
Congress  —  The  Battle  of  Chancellorsville  —  A  Conscription  Ordered 
and  Martial  Law  Declared  —  Colored  Troops  Enlisted  —  Great 
Financial  Measures  Afoot  —  Vallandigham's  Expulsion  and  Re- 
turn —  Growth  of  the  Anti-War  Sentiment  —  Fall  of  Vicksburg  and 
Battle  of  Gettysburg  —  Popular  Rejoicings  —  The  President's  Pro- 
clamation of  Thanksgiving  —  Draft  Riots  in  New  York  —  Lincoln's 
Address  on  the  Field  of  Gettysburg  —  Grant  and  Sherman  in  the 
West. 


AMBROSE  E.  BURNSIDE  succeeded 

McClellan  as  commander  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac.  General  Burnside  was  a  graduate  of  the 
United  States  Military  Academy,  but  had  been,  like 
his  predecessor,  engaged  in  other  pursuits  than  that 
of  the  military  service,  before  the  beginning  of  the  war 
of  the  Rebellion.  He  was  "every  inch  a  soldier"  in 
appearance,  of  fine  figure  and  address,  amiable,  loyal, 
and  patriotic.  He  undertook  the  command  of  the 
army  with  many  misgivings.  McClellan's  favorite 
generals,  it  was  probable,  would  not  support  him  with 
cordiality,  and,  although  he  had  proved  his  ability 
while  handling  a  corps,  as  at  the  battle  of  Antietam, 
he  took  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  with 
diffidence.  Assuring  himself,  as  far  as  he  was  able, 
of  the  co-operation  of  his  comrades  in  arms,  he  as- 
sumed command,  after  much  persuasion,  on  the 
of  November,  just  at  the  beginning  of  winter, 

349 


350  Abraham  Lincoln 

At  the  outset,  there  was  a  disagreement  between 
Burnside,  Halleck,  and  Lincoln  as  to  the  best  line  of 
attack  upon  the  Rebel  forces.  Burnside 's  plan  was  to 
make  a  sudden  and  aggressive  movement  towards 
Richmond  by  the  way  of  Fredericksburg,  on  the 
Rappahannock.  Halleck  preferred  the  line  reaching 
through  Gordonsville,  farther  to  the  west.  Lincoln 
was  asked  to  decide  between  the  two.  Inclined  as  he 
was  to  defer  to  the  judgment  of  the  general  who  was 
to  conduct  the  movement,  he  favored  Burnside 's 
plan.  Accordingly,  he  went  over  the  situation  in 
council  with  Halleck,  and  then  wrote  to  Burnside 
that  Halleck  approved  the  Fredericksburg  route, 
provided  Burnside  should  move  with  rapidity.  Other- 
wise, he  was  sure  that  that  route  would  not  be  the 
best.  Burnside's  army  was  directed  towards  Fred- 
ericksburg, but,  owing  to  a  delay  in  furnishing  him 
with  the  pontoons  required  for  crossing  the  river, 
Lee  was  able  to  occupy  and  fortify  the  heights  above 
the  city,  and  before  Burnside  was  ready  to  put  in  his 
pontoon  bridges,-  he  was  confronted  with  Lee's  con- 
centrated army.  Burnside  arrived  at  Falmouth,  on 
the  northern  side  of  the  Rappahannock,  November 
igth;  his  pontoons  did  not  arrive  until  the  25th. 
The  attack  was  made,  in  the  face  of  difficulties  almost 
hopeless  to  overcome,  on  the  i5th  of  December.  Lee 
occupied  the  heights  above  Fredericksburg,  his  artil- 
lery commanding  every  approach  from  the  opposite 
side  of  the  river.  The  assault  was  made,  however, 
and,  as  many  despondent  military  critics  had  pre- 
dicted, the  Army  of  the  Potomac  was  repulsed  with 
frightful  slaughter.  It  was  a  great  disaster.  Wash- 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  351 

ington  was  filled  with  the  wounded  who  were  brought 
up  from  the  base  at  Acquia  Creek,  on  the  Potomac, 
and  the  hospitals,  that  now  occupied  churches  and 
other  public  buildings  at  the  capital,  were  crowded 
with  the  wounded  and  the  dying.  Congress  was  in 
session,  and  the  politicians  of  both  sides  were  alert  to 
take  advantage  of  this  military  reverse  to  press  their 
several  policies  upon  the  attention  of  the  President, 
Congress,  and  the  country. 

The  year  closed  in  gloom.  The  Rebels  had  suc- 
ceeded in  scaring  McClellan  from  Richmond,  although 
he  had  been  within  a  few  miles  of  the  Rebel  capital  at 
one  time.  They  had  inflicted  a  severe  blow  upon  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  under  Burnside;  previous  to 
which  they  had,  so  to  speak,  whipped  Pope  in  detail 
while  he  was  left  to  struggle  against  a  superior  force, 
his  own  army  being  unsupported  and  brought  up  in 
sections  to  the  slaughter.  Stonewall  Jackson  had 
swept  the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  eluding  Mc- 
Dowell and  Fremont  and  driving  Banks  across  the 
Potomac.  Nor  was  the  military  situation  in  the 
West  much  more  hopeful.  Buell  had  been  forced 
back  in  Kentucky,  and  the  Rebel  General  Bragg  had 
entered  that  State  and  a  provisional  Rebel  govern- 
ment had  been  organized  at  Frankfort,  the  capital 
of  Kentucky,  an  event  that  was  designed  to  encourage 
the  Rebel  element  in  the  border  States  and  the  anti- 
Union  element  in  the  North,  heretofore  somewhat 
kept  under.  The  cities  of  Louisville,  Kentucky,  and 
Cincinnati,  Ohio,  were  menaced,  and  it  was  found 
needful  to  fortify  them.  At  the  end  of  December 
the  combined  Union  forces  under  Generals  Sherman 


352  Abraham  Lincoln 

and  McClernand  made  a  vigorous  assault  upon  the 
defences  of  Vicksburg,  that  city  still  holding  the 
Mississippi  for  the  Rebels,  but  were  repulsed  with 
much  loss.  A  solitary  gleam  of  light  flashed  up  on 
the  closing  of  the  year,  when  Rosecrans  fought  the 
battle  of  Stone  River,  in  which  the  Rebels  were  de- 
feated with  great  loss,  but  were  able,  under  General 
Bragg,  to  retreat  to  the  southward. 

Meanwhile,  the  party  that  hoped  for  peace  on  some 
other  terms  than  those  of  the  overthrow  and  punish- 
ment of  the  Rebels  had  been  gaming  ground.  When 
the  military  successes  of  the  Union  cause  were  pro- 
nounced, these  men  kept  silence.  As  soon  as  the  tide 
of  war  went  with  the  Rebels,  the  clamor  for  a  cessation 
of  hostilities  and  an  ending  of  the  sacrifice  of  life  in 
battle  grew  loud.  Lincoln  was  besieged,  on  the  one 
hand,  with  demands  for  the  reinstatement  of  McClel- 
lan  and  a  more  vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war,  and 
on  the  other  with  importunities  for  an  armistice,  or 
truce,  during  which  negotiations  for  a  settlement 
should  be  carried  on.  There  was  another  class  who, 
while  calling  for  more  vigorous  tactics  on  the  part  of 
the  administration,  were  eager  for  a  change  of  gen- 
erals. Among  others,  General  Banks  was  repre- 
sented to  be  the  favorite  for  whom  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  was  anxiously  waiting.  The  Peace  Demo- 
crats, as  they  were  called,  grew  more  and  more  im- 
portunate for  some  attempt  at  settlement  that  should 
include  leaving  undisturbed  the  peculiar  institution, 
slavery. 

An  interesting  correspondence  between  Lincoln 
and  Fernando  Wood,  Mayor  of  New  York,  took 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  353 

place  toward  the  end  of  1862.  This  was  the  same 
Wood  who,  when  Lincoln  was  first  chosen  President, 
had  advocated  the  erection  of  New  York  into  a  free 
city  and  its  neutrality  as  a  belligerent.  He  now 
informed  Lincoln  that  he  was  credibly  informed  that 
the  Southern  States  would  send  representatives  to 
Congress  and  resume  their  old-time  relations,  pro- 
vided a  full  and  general  amnesty  were  proclaimed. 
In  his  reply,  Lincoln  said  that  he  strongly  suspected 
that  Mr.  Wood's  information  would  prove  to  be 
without  foundation. 

"  Nevertheless,"  he  said,  "  I  thank  you  for  communicat- 
ing it  to  me.  Understanding  the  phrase  in  the  paragraph 
quoted,  '  the  Southern  States  would  send  representatives 
to  the  next  Congress,'  to  be  substantially  the  same  as  that 
'  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  would  cease  resistance, 
and  would  reinaugurate,  submit  to,  and  maintain  the 
national  authority,  within  the  limits  of  such  States,  under 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,'  I  say  that  in  such 
case  the  war  would  cease  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  if,  within  a  reasonable  time,  a  full  and  general 
amnesty  were  necessary  to  such  an  end,  it  would  not  be 
withheld." 

Wood  had  quoted  from  Lincoln's  inaugural  ad- 
dress and  to  this  had  added  many  arguments  and 
protestations  of  the  alleged  loyal  purposes  and  inten- 
tions of  the  Southern  people.  Lincoln  passed  by  all 
these,  and,  returning  to  the  phrases  quoted  by  Wood 
from  the  inaugural,  as  above,  gave  these  as  the  only 
reasonable  basis  on  which  any  hope  of  an  amnesty 
could  be  founded.  Lincoln  thought,  and  said, 


354  Abraham  Lincoln 

that  an  amnesty  would  be  forthcoming  when  the 
Rebels  should  cease  to  resist  the  Federal  authority, 
not  before.  Wood  urged  that  Lincoln  ought  to 
verify,  if  possible,  the  statement  that  the  Rebels 
were  ready  to  consider  terms  of  adjustment  and 
peace.  This  could  only  be  done  by  opening  a  cor- 
respondence with  the  Southern  leaders.  Meantime, 
military  operations  must  cease.  To  this  Lincoln  had 
but  one  reply:  it  was  not  the  time  to  stop  military 
operations  for  the  purpose  of  opening  negotiations. 
Here  the  correspondence  ended.  But  the  insistence 
of  the  Peace  Democrats  did  not  end  here.  With 
varying  arguments  and  in  various  keys,  they  con- 
tinued to  demand  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  even  until 
the  end  of  the  war. 

Congress  was  divided  into  factions.  The  Cabinet 
was  not  wholly  harmonious.  The  loyal  press  of  the 
country  was  bitter  and  arrogant  in  its  criticisms  of 
the  administration.  Mr.  Greeley  declared  in  favor 
of  foreign  intervention,  and,  in  private  conversations, 
reported  to  the  President,  deplored  the  fact  that  his 
favorite  statesman,  Secretary  Chase,  had  not  been 
placed  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac  long 
before.  In  the  army  there  were  mutterings  of  dis- 
content. General  Hooker  openly  derided  Burnside 
as  "a  butcher,"  and  declared  that  he  had  fought  the 
battle  of  Fredericksburg  on  his  "deportment." 
Others  of  the  army  began  to  say  that  the  country 
needed  a  dictator,  a  military  hero.  An  old  officer 
of  the  army  was  arrested  for  saying  publicly  that  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  with  "little  Mac"  at  its  head, 
should  "clean  out  Congress  and  the  White  House." 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  355 

In  the  midst  of  these  disquieting  and  depressing 
scenes  and  rumors,  Lincoln  alone  was  calm,  resolute, 
and  uncomplaining.  He  never  for  an  instant  re- 
laxed his  efforts  to  push  the  war ;  never  faltered  even 
in  the  face  of  what  seemed  inevitable  defeat.  To  a 
sympathizing  friend  who  asked  how  he  was  getting  on 
with  the  prosecution  of  the  war,  he  sadly  and  grimly 
said:  "Oh,  I  am  just  pegging  away."  And,  long 
after,  when  the  war  was  wellnigh  over,  and  another 
friend  congratulated  him  on  his  pluck  and  endur- 
ance in  sticking  to  the  work  when  all  seemed  hopeless, 
he  said:  "Well,  there  was  nothing  else  to  be  done." 

On  the  26th  of  January,  1863,  Lincoln  wrote  to 
General  Hooker  the  following  characteristic  letter : 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 
"WASHINGTON,  D.  C.,  January  26,  1863. 
"  Major-General  Hooker. 

"  GENERAL: — I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what 
appear  to  me  to  be  sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it 
best  for  you  to  know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regard 
to  which  I  am  not  satisfied  with  you.  I  believe  you  to  be 
a  brave  and  skilful  soldier,  which  of  course  I  like.  I  also 
believe  that  you  do  not  mix  politics  with  your  profession, 
in  which  you  are  right.  You  have  confidence  in  yourself, 
which  is  a  valuable,  if  not  indispensable  quality.  You 
are  ambitious,  which,  within  reasonable  bounds,  does 
good  rather  than  harm ;  but  I  think  that  during  General 
Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have  taken  counsel 
of  your  ambition  and  thwarted  him  as  much  as  you  could, 
in  which  you  did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country  and  to  a 
most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer.  I  have 


356  Abraham  Lincoln 

heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  recently  say- 
ing that  both  the  army  and  the  Government  needed  a 
dictator.  Of  course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it, 
that  I  have  given  you  the  command.  Only  those  generals 
who  gain  success  can  be  dictators.  What  I  now  ask  of 
you  is  military  success,  and  I  will  risk  the  dictatorship. 
The  Government  will  support  you  to  the  utmost  of  its 
ability,  which  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has  done  and 
will  do  for  all  commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit 
which  you  have  aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criticising 
their  commander  and  withholding  confidence  from  him, 
will  now  turn  upon  you.  I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I 
can  to  put  it  down.  Neither  you  nor  Napoleon,  if  he 
were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good  out  of  an  army  while 
such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it.  And  now,  beware  of  rashness. 
Beware  of  rashness,  but,  with  energy  and  sleepless 
vigilance,  go  forward  and  give  us  victories. 

"  Yours,  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 


It  must  be  said  that  this  brotherly  and  almost 
affectionate  letter,  while  it  was  appreciated  by  its 
recipient,  did  not  strike  him  as  being  particularly 
pertinent  and  well-deserved.  Just  before  the  battle 
of  Chancellors ville,  while  Lincoln  and  a  few  personal 
friends  were  at  the  head-quarters  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  on  a  visit,  General  Hooker  said  to  one  of  the 
party,  in  the  privacy  of  his  tent,  late  at  night:  "I 
suppose  you  have  seen  this  letter,  or  a  copy  of  it?" 
The  gentleman  replied  that  he  had,  and  Hooker,  with 
that  magnificent  air  that  characterized  him,  said: 
"After  I  have  been  to  Richmond  I  shall  have  the 
letter  published  in  the  newspapers.  It  will  be  amus- 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  357 

ing."  When  this  was  told  to  Lincoln,  he  said,  with 
a  sigh:  "Poor  Hooker!  I  am  afraid  he  is  incor- 
rigible." 

During  the  visit  above  referred  to,  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac  was  reported  to  be  ready  for  immediate 
action.  The  rosters  examined  by  the  President 
showed  216,718  men  on  the  rolls,  of  whom  16,000 
were  on  detached  service;  136,720  were  in  active 
duty,  1771  absent  without  authority,  26,000  sick, 
and  the  actual  effective  force  was  146,000,  which 
number  could  be  increased  at  any  time  to  169,000 
by  calling  in  the  men  from  outlying  stations.  The 
reviews  held  during  the  President's  stay,  which 
lasted  for  a  whole  week,  were  the  last  that  were  had 
before  the  battle  of  Chancellors ville,  which  was  begun 
late  in  April.  During  the  reviews  the  President  rode 
everywhere  with  General  Hooker  and  his  staff,  ac- 
companied by  little  Tad,  his  youngest  son,  who, 
attended  by  an  orderly,  hung  on  the  flanks  of  the 
brilliant  cavalcade,  his  gray  cloak  fluttering  in  the 
wind.  Often  Lincoln  turned  his  face  anxiously  in 
the  direction  of  the  lad's  flight,  for  the  youngster  was 
a  fearless  rider. 

The  battle  of  Chancellorsville  was  another  and  yet 
more  crushing  disaster.  Up  to  a  certain  point,  all 
went  well  with  the  army;  but,  that  being  reached, 
the  plan  of  campaign  seemed  to  crumble,  and  nothing 
further  was  done.  There  was  some  delay  in  return- 
ing the  army  to  the  north  bank  of  the  Rappahannock 
after  the  repulse  that  nearly  had  ended  the  campaign. 
No  news  reached  Washington,  and  an  expectation 
that  Hooker  would  even  yet  retrieve  the  admitted 


35 8  Abraham  Lincoln 

disaster  was  entertained.  Lincoln  clung  desperately 
to  this  hope.  But,  after  vainly  seeking  for  informa- 
tion from  the  army,  Lincoln  received,  early  in  the 
afternoon  of  May  6th,  a  despatch  from  General  But- 
terfield,  Hooker's  Chief  of  Staff,  announcing  that  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  had  safely  recrossed  the  Rap- 
pahannock  and  was  then  encamped  on  its  old 
ground.  The  President  seemed  stunned.  Taking 
the  despatch  in  his  hand,  he  passed  into  another 
room  in  the  White  House,  where  were  two  of  his 
intimate  friends  who  had  been  with  him  during  the 
recent  inspection  of  the  army,  and  handing  it  to  one 
of  them,  he  said,  by  a  motion  of  his  lips,  "Read  it." 
It  was  read  aloud,  and  Lincoln,  his  face  ashy  gray 
in  hue  and  his  eyes  streaming  with  tears,  finally 
ejaculated:  "My  God!  my  God!  What  will  the 
country  say?  What  will  the  country  say?"  He 
refused  to  be  comforted,  for  his  grief  was  great. 

Within  an  hour,  amidst  a  pouring  rain,  Lincoln, 
accompanied  by  General  Halleck,  took  a  small 
steamer  from  the  Washington  navy-yard  and  was  on 
his  way  "to  the  army,  by  the  way  of  Acquia  Creek. 
The  wildest  rumors  flew  around  the  capital;  the 
most  credible  being  that  the  Secretary  of  War  had 
resigned,  and  the  President  had  gone  to  the  front  to 
put  Halleck  in  command.  Neither  of  these  things 
were  true;  and,  as  soon  as  the  torn  and  bleeding 
Army  of  the  Potomac  could  be  reinforced  and  re- 
cruited, it  was  once  more  put  on  a  fighting  basis. 
But,  for  a  time,  the  losses  sustained  by  the  Union 
army,  about  ten  thousand  in  all,  and  the  disappoint- 
ment endured  by  the  country,  seemed  to  plunge  every 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide 


359 


loyal  element  into  the  deepest  gloom,  both  in  the 
camps  and  in  the  towns. 

It  was  necessary  that  stringent  measures  forthe 
calling  out  of  the  available  forces  of  the  United  States 
should  be  takej^y 'A  few  authorizing  a  conscription 
or  draft  was  enacted^eing  bitterly  opposed  by  th 
Democrats  in  Omgrpga^  Acting  under  the  provision 
of  the  Constitution  permitting  it,  the  President 
suspended  the  privileges  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
by  which  the  citizen  deprived  of  his  liberty  could 
ippeal^to_the  courts  for  an  examination  into  his  case. 
The  President,  under  the  same  authority,  also  pro- 
claimed martial  law,  under  which  any  offender 
against  the  peace  and  dignity  of  the  United  States 
could  be  tried  and  condemned  by  a  court-martial, 
without  the  privilege  of  appealing  to  the  civil  courts, 
lese  acts,  severely  criticised  at  the  time,  were 
[justified  hy_jaJ3at^are  caljexLthe  war  powers  of  the 
le  United  States,  under  the  Constitu- 
tion. V^nscriptionwaTelcpe^e^to^irup  the  armies.y 
[artial  law  was  to  arrest  and  hold  mischievous  anj./ 
raitorous  per  sons)  engaged  in  obstructing  the  draff, 
or  otherwise  interfering  with  the  operations  of  the 
Government.  The  suspension  of  the  privileges  of 
the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  made  martial  law  practi- 
cable. The  confiscation  of  Rebel  property,  author- 
ized by  Congress,  crippled  the  resources  of  the  Rebels, 
particularly  on  the  border,  and  kept  in  check  their 
sympathizers  in  the  border  States.^Another  im- 
yportant  act  was  the  authorizing  of  the  enlistment  of 

A/ negro  troops^  All  of  these  measures  were  stead-^ 

A  fastly  opposed  by  those  who 


360  Abraham  Lincoln 

The  arming  of  the  ex-slaves,  and  putting  upon  them 
the  uniform  of  the  United  States,  was  greeted  with 
a  cry  of  rage  and  execration,  North  and  South.  It 
was  not  until,  somewhat  later  on,  it  was  found  that 
black  men  were  eligible  as  substitutes  for  white  men 
drafted  to  military  service,  that  the  clamor  against 
arming  the  blacks  subsided.  From  first  to  last,  the 
number  of  negro  troops  enlisted  in  the  war  was 


Among  the  measures  passed  by  Congress  about  this 
time  was  one  authorizing  the  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury to  borrow  money  to  carry  on  the  war.  The 
total  amount  which  he  was  given  leave  to  raise  on 
the  obligations  of  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  was  nine  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  The 
bonds  were  to  bear  six  per  cent,  interest,  and  to  be 
redeemed  in  not  less  than  ten  years  nor  more  than 
forty  years.  To  meet  the  pressing  exigencies  of  the 
times,  much  money  being  due  to  the  soldiers  and 
sailors,  the  Secretary  was  authorized  to  issue  one 
hundred  millions  of  dollars  in  United  States  treasury 
notes.  When  the  President  signed  this  measure, 
which  he  did  promptly,  he  sent  to  Congress  a  message 
in  which  he  expressed  his  regret  that  so  large  an 
amount  of  paper  money  was  found  needful  to  be 
issued.  He  had  already  recommended  the  formation 
of  national  banks,  with  a  uniform  currency,  based  on 
United  States  bonds,  to  be  deposited  by  the  banks 
with  the  treasury  of  the  United  States.  These  and 
other  financial  measures  were  regarded  with  grave 
concern  by  many  able  financiers.  The  finances  of  the 
country  were  in  a  disordered  condition.  Silver  and 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  361 

gold  had  disappeared  from  circulation.  Even  the 
small  change  needed  in  the  every-day  transactions 
of  the  people  was  now  of  paper.  At  first,  postage 
stamps  were  used  for  small  change,  and  the  word 
"stamps"  was  universally  used  to  express  the  idea 
of  money,  in  amounts  large  or  small.  The  fractional 
notes  subsequently  issued  by  the  Treasury  Depart- 
ment were  popularly  called  "shin-plasters,"  and  the 
opponents  of  the  war,  who  had  now  also  become 
opponents  and  enemies  of  the  public  credit,  took 
every  opportunity  to  weaken  the  faith  of  the  people 
in  the  circulation  of  Government  paper  and  excite 
derision  concerning  these  issues. 

The  prices  of  everything  that  entered  into  the 
daily  uses  of  the  people  had  greatly  increased,  so 
that  the  cost  of  living  had  gone  far  above  real  values. 
Artful  politicians  fanned  the  flames  of  popular  dis- 
content, and  every  imaginable  or  real  ill  was  charged 
to  the  account  of  the  war.  Even  the  law  permitting 
drafted  men  to  hire  substitutes,  or  escape  military 
service  by  paying  an  exemption  fine  of  three  hun- 
dred dollars,  was  assailed  as  a  provision  for  the 
benefit  of  the  rich  and  the  oppression  of  the  poor.  In 
this  way  agitation  against  the  war  was  sedulously 
recommenced,  and  meetings,  some  of  them  violent 
and  almost  treasonable  in  tone,  were  held  in  various 
parts  of  the  country.  In  the  Western  States  there 
were  formed  secret  societies  for  the  propagation  of 
seditious  doctrines  and  the  encouragement  of  those 
who  were  prepared  to  resist  the  Government.  Some 
of  these  organizations  were  reputed  to  hold  corre- 
spondence with  the  Rebels,  and  to  lend  them  aid.  and 


362  Abraham  Lincoln 

comfort.  Altogether  the  times  were  critical.  Every 
man  suspected  his  neighbor's  loyalty. 

One  of  the  most  violent  and  vituperative  of  these 
opponents  of  the  war  was  Clement  L.  Vallandigham, 
a  Representative  in  Congress  from  Ohio.  In  Congress 
he  had  steadily  and  ardently  opposed  every  measure 
designed  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  President 
and  other  officers  of  the  Government  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war,  and  had  introduced  resolutions  of 
censure  directed  at  the  President,  on  which  he  had 
made  bitter  and  excited  speeches  designed  to  sow 
dissension  and  foment  popular  discontent.  He 
especially  aimed  to  weaken  the  Government  by  dis- 
couraging enlistments,  and  excite  in  the  minds  of  the 
people,  and  of  the  men  already  in  the  army,  the 
notion  that  the  war  and  all  the  operations  of  the 
Government  pertaining  to  it  were  illegal,  unconstitu- 
tional and  wrong. 

General  Burnside,  commanding  the  military  de- 
partment in  which  the  State  of  Ohio  was  included, 
issued  an  order  in  which  he  gave  notice  that  there- 
after all  persons  within  his  lines  who  should  be  guilty 
of  acts  designed  to  assist  the  enemy  would  be 
arrested  as  traitors  and  spies,  tried,  and,  if  convicted, 
be  put  to  death.  Vallandigham  immediately  de- 
nounced this  order  in  a  flaming  speech,  in  which  he 
called  upon  the  people  to  resist.  He  was  arrested, 
tried,  convicted,  and  sentenced  to  be  confined  in 
some  fortress  of  the  United  States,  to  be  designated 
by  General  Burnside,  who  named  Fort  Warren, 
Boston  Harbor,  as  the  place  of  imprisonment.  The 
President  was  besieged  by  men  who  remonstrated 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  363 

against  what  they  stigmatized  as  an  act  of  outrageous 
tyranny.  The  incident  excited  much  interest  and 
debate  all  over  the  country.  Lincoln,  it  was  very 
well  understood,  would  not  have  originated  any  such 
prosecution  as  that  which  had  now  resulted  in  the 
placing  of  Vallandigham  in  the  light  of  a  hero  and  a 
martyr.  He  changed  the  penalty  to  an  expulsion 
through  the  Union  lines  into  the  Rebel  States.  This 
sentence  was  carried  out  and  Vallandigham  was  sent 
to  the  Rebel  outposts  under  a  guard  and  flag  of  truce. 
Received  hospitably  by  his  friends  the  Rebels,  Val- 
landigham was  given  a  safe-conduct  through  the 
Confederacy,  and  soon  appeared  in  Canada,  then  a 
safe  refuge  for  all  sorts  of  fugitives  and  suspects. 

Meanwhile,  meetings  to  denounce  the  expulsion  of 
Vallandigham  had  been  held  in  various  towns  and 
cities,  and  Lincoln  was  presented  with  sundry 
remonstrances  by  committees  of  these  gatherings. 
The  Democrats  of  Ohio  nominated  Vallandigham 
for  Governor  of  that  State,  and  sent  a  deputation  to 
wait  on  the  President  to  demand  a  recall  of  their 
missing  candidate.  To  this  deputation  Lincoln  said : 
"Your  own  attitude  encourages  desertion,  resistance 
to  the  draft,  and  the  like,  because  it  teaches  those 
who  incline  to  desert  and  to  escape  the  draft  to 
believe  it  is  your  purpose  to  protect  them."  More- 
over, he  told  the  deputation  that  his  treatment  of 
Vallandigham  was  "for  prevention,  not  for  punish- 
ment; an  injunction  to  stay  an  injury";  and  he  in- 
timated that  his  modification  of  General  Burnside's 
order  was  a  more  agreeable  way,  at  least  to  Mr. 
Vallandigham,  to  stay  the  injury  contemplated  than 


364  Abraham  Lincoln 

imprisonment  would  have  been.  Replying  to  another 
appeal,  in  which  it  was  intimated  that  his  reasons  for 
the  "persecution"  of  Vallandigham  were  selfish,  he 
said  that  Vallandigham  was  not  arrested  because  he 
was  likely  to  damage  the  political  prospects  of  the 
administration,  but  "because  he  was  damaging  the 
army,  upon  the  existence  and  vigor  of  which  the 
life  of  the  nation  depends."  And  he  added:  "Must 
I  shoot  a  simple-minded  soldier  boy  who  deserts, 
while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  the  wily  agitator 
who  induces  him  to  desert  ?  I  think  that,  in  such  a 
case,  to  silence  the  agitator  and  save  the  boy  is  not 
only  constitutional,  but  withal  a  great  mercy." 

In  course  of  time,  Vallandigham  came  secretly 
back  to  the  United  States,  and  soon  began  to  vapor 
prodigiously  as  to  what  he  would  do  if  again  arrested. 
By  that  time,  however,  his  power  for  mischief  was 
lessened  on  account  of  the  better  condition  of  public 
sentiment.  Meanwhile,  his  party  had  been  defeated 
in  Ohio  by  the  phenomenal  majority  of  one  hundred 
thousand  for  the  Republican  candidate.  The  Gov- 
ernment took  no  further  notice  of  Vallandigham,  and 
he  speedily  sank  into  obscurity. 

The  turning-point  in  the  military  history  of  the  re- 
bellion came  during  the  month  of  July,  1863.  In 
that  month  fell  Vicksburg,  thus  opening  the  Missis- 
sippi River;  and  in  that  month  was  fought  the  bat- 
tle of  Gettysburg,  by  which  the  last  frantic  effort  to 
invade  the  North  was  frustrated  and  an  irreparable 
damage  inflicted  upon  the  Rebel  cause. 

Grant  had  begun,  by  the  end  of  1862,  to  attract 
the  attention  of  loyal  men  throughout  the  Union  afl 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  365 

the  possible  "coming  man,"  for  whom  all  patriots 
had  been  looking  to  lead  our  armies  to  victory. 
Detraction  was  speedily  on  his  trail,  and  there  were 
those  who  sought  to  destroy  him  with  slander.  Some 
said  that  his  habits  were  intemperate,  to  which 
Lincoln  sarcastically  said  that,  if  intoxication  gave 
him  ability  to  win  such  victories  as  he  had  accom- 
plished, he  would  send  some  of  the  same  sort  of  liquor 
to  other  generals  of  the  Union  army.  The  outlook 
was  discouraging  when,  in  February,  1863,  Grant 
took  command  before  Vicksburg  with  the  intention 
of  capturing  the  city.  After  due  preparation,  Grant's 
fleet  of  gunboats,  above  Vicksburg,  ran  the  gauntlet 
of  the  Rebel  batteries,  receiving  a  fire  that  was  terrific. 
But  the  fleet  succeeded  in  reaching  a  point  below  the 
city,  where  a  junction  was  effected  with  the  Union 
troops  that  had  been  marched  down  by  land  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river.  The  campaign  resulted, 
first,  in  a  complete  investment  of  the  city  of  Vicks- 
burg, and  finally,  July  4,  1863,  in  the  surrender  of 
the  place,  with  a  large  force  and  ammunition  for 
sixty  thousand  men.  The  country  was  electrified  by 
the  announcement  of  this  long-hoped-for  victory. 
The  Father  of  Waters  now  flowed  un vexed  to  the  sea. 
The  Rebel  Confederacy  was  split  in  twain. 

Words  cannot  describe  the  flame  of  excitement,  the 
wave  of  tumultuous  joy,  that  swept  through  the 
loyal  North  when  it  was  known  that  Vicksburg,  the 
so-called  impregnable  Gibraltar  of  the  West,  had 
fallen  at  last.  Bells  were  rung,  fireworks  lighted, 
and  bonfires  set  blazing  on  the  hills  of  the  joyful 
Western  States,  so  long  deprived  of  a  natural  outlet 


366  Abraham  Lincoln 

to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico;  and  everywhere  men  con- 
gratulated themselves  that  the  end  of  the  war  might 
soon  be  seen.  In  a  glow  of  generous  gratitude  to 
Grant  for  his  magnificent  services  to  the  country, 
Lincoln  wrote  him  the  following  warm-hearted 
letter: 

"Mv  DEAR  GENERAL: — I  do  not  remember  that  you 
and  I  ever  met  personally.  I  write  this  now  as  a  grateful 
acknowledgment  for  the  almost  inestimable  service  you 
have  done  the  country.  I  wish  to  say  a  word  further. 
When  you  first  reached  the  vicinity  of  Vicksburg,  I 
thought  you  should  do  what  you  finally  did — march  the 
troops  across  the  neck,  run  the  batteries  with  the  trans- 
ports, and  thus  go  below;  and  I  never  had  any  faith, 
except  a  general  hope  that  you  knew  better  than  I,  that 
the  Yazoo  Pass  expedition  and  the  like  could  succeed. 
When  you  got  below  and  took  Port  Gibson,  Grand  Gulf, 
and  vicinity,  I  thought  you  should  go  down  the  river  and 
join  General  Banks;  and  when  you  turned  northward, 
east  of  the  Big  Black,  I  thought  it  was  a  mistake.  I  now 
wish  to  make  the  personal  acknowledgment  that  you  were 
right  and  I  was  wrong." 

The  battle  of  Gettysburg  was  brought  on  by  Lee's 
attempt  to  carry  the  war,  as  had  been  often  threatened 
by  the  Rebels,  into  the  States  of  the  loyal  North. 
Crossing  the  upper  Rappahannock  with  all  the  avail- 
able troops  that  could  be  gathered  from  the  region 
east  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains,  the  Rebel  chief 
passed  to  the  westward  of  Washington  and  sent  his 
skirmishers  across  the  Potomac  and  entered  Mary- 
land at  Dranesville.  Bodies  of  cavalry  invaded 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  367 

Pennsylvania;  one  under  Jenkins  went  as  far  as 
Greencastle,  in  that  State,  carrying  panic  and  terror 
wherever  it  appeared.  It  was  Lee's  manifest  inten- 
tion to  cut  the  communications  west  and  north  of 
Baltimore  and  then  push  on,  possibly  engaging  in  a 
great  battle  somewhere  near  Philadelphia.  On  the 
2yth  of  June,  a  Rebel  army  corps,  under  General 
Ewell,  reached  Carlisle,  Pa.,  and  his  scouts  recon- 
noitred Harrisburg,  the  capital  of  the  State,  the 
citizens  of  which  hurriedly  prepared  for  an  attack. 
Consternation  everywhere  prevailed.  Meanwhile, 
General  Hooker  had  been  succeeded  in  command  of 
the  Army  of  the  Potomac  by  General  George  G. 
Meade,  the  failure  of  Hooker  to  discover  Lee's  aims 
and  circumvent  them  having  excited  the  indignation 
of  the  authorities  at  Washington.  Meade's  idea 
was  to  prevent  the  Rebel  army  from  crossing  the 
Susquehanna  and  striking  at  Baltimore.  He  ac- 
cordingly extended  his  line  so  as  to  occupy  the  valley 
between  the  Susquehanna  on  the  north  and  the 
Potomac  on  the  south.  He  soon  found,  however, 
that  the  Rebel  army  was  being  concentrated  at 
Gettysburg,  a  small  city  to  the  north  and  west  of 
the  position  occupied  by  himself. 

As  Meade  had  also  intended  to  concentrate  his 
forces  at  the  same  point,  a  collision  between  the  two 
armies  became  inevitable  by  this  coincidence.  The 
battle-field  lies  between  two  small  streams,  Wil- 
loughby  Run  to  the  west  of  the  town,  and  Rock 
Creek  on  the  east.  Northwest  of  the  city  is  a  group 
of  hills,  Oak  Hill,  Seminary  Hill,  and  Seminary 
Ridge,  the  general  direction  of  the  line  being  north 


368  Abraham  Lincoln 

and  south.  Southeast  of  this  is  another  group, 
Cemetery  Hill,  Cemetery  Ridge,  Round  Top,  and 
Little  Round  Top.  Still  farther  to  the  east  is  a  third 
group,  of  which  Gulp's  Hill  is  the  most  northerly  and 
Power's  Hill  the  most  southerly. 

This  system  of  hills  draws  together  at  one  con- 
verging point  all  the  roads  that  would  be  available 
for  a  military  movement  from  the  north  and  west 
(where  Lee's  army  now  was  being  concentrated) 
towards  those  parts  of  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania 
that  were  presumably  the  objects  of  his  attack. 
Three  turnpikes  and  seven  country  roads  pass 
through  the  town.  It  was  here  then  that  a  stand 
must  be  made  against  the  farther  advance  of  the 
invading  army.  The  Rebels  were  amazed  by  the 
richness  of  the  pastoral  and  farming  country  in 
which  they  found  themselves,  as  contrasted  with 
their  own  impoverished  and  battle-swept  country. 
They  rioted  in  agricultural  luxury. 

Fighting  began  on  the  ist  day  of  July,  the  con- 
flict being  precipitated  almost  by  accident.  In  this 
preliminary  fight,  General  Reynolds,  commanding 
the  First  Army  Corps  of  the  Federal  troops,  was 
killed.  The  odds  were  greatly  against  the  Federals, 
the  bulk  of  their  army  not  having  come  up.  The 
battle  raged  all  day,  the  Rebels  flinging  themselves 
desperately  against  the  Federal  line  of  defence  in  the 
attempt  to  force  their  way  through  the  system  of 
hills  before-mentioned.  Night  came  with  the  con- 
flict still  undecided,  and  to  be  renewed  on  the  follow- 
ing day,  when  the  great  battle  was  fought.  We 
need  not  here  recite  the  oft-told  tale  of  that  historic 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  369 

fight  that  raged  around  the  hills,  in  which  so  much 
valor  and  desperation  were  exhibited  on  both  sides. 
Again  night  came  down  on  the  bloody  field  to  end  a 
conflict  that  left  neither  party  a  decided  advantage. 
The  Federal  troops  had  suffered  great  losses.  Nearly 
all  the  brigades  had  been  engaged.  More  than 
twenty  thousand  men  had  been  killed,  wounded,  or 
captured,  and  numerous  stragglers  and  deserters, 
streaming  off  in  the  rear  towards  Baltimore,  carried 
panic  and  alarm  with  them.  A  night  council-of-war 
decided  to  hold  the  position  and  renew  the  fight  next 
day.  The  lines  were  re-formed  during  the  night, 
and  the  battle  of  the  3d  of  July  decided  the  fate 
of  the  Rebel  army.  It  was  finally  repulsed,  after  a 
terrific  struggle,  and,  beaten,  broken,  bleeding,  and 
decimated,  Lee's  forces  retired  sullenly  but  in  good 
order.  The  Rebel  invasion  was  over,  and  Lee's 
army  had  suffered  a  stunning  defeat. 

The  effective  force  under  Meade  in  this  three  days' 
battle  was  from  82,000  to  84,000  men,  with  300 
pieces  of  artillery.  Lee's  effective  force  was  80,000 
men,  with  250  guns.  The  total  of  killed,  wounded, 
and  missing  in  this  fight  was  about  46,000  men,  each 
side  having  suffered  equally.  Twenty  generals  were 
lost  by  the  Federal  army,  six  being  killed.  The 
Rebels  lost  seventeen  generals,  three  being  killed, 
thirteen  wounded,  and  one  taken  prisoner.  The 
number  of  heavy  guns  employed  during  the  battle 
attracted  world- wide  attention.  The  artillery  duels 
that  occurred  during  the  last  two  days'  fighting  were 
a  remarkable  feature  of  the  contest. 

The  popular  rejoicing  over  this  victory  was  dimmed 


370  Abraham  Lincoln 

somewhat  by  the  failure  of  Meade  to  capture,  as 
many  supposed  he  would,  the  Rebel  army,  which 
escaped  across  the  Potomac  at  Falling  Waters, 
Maryland,  where  it  had  been  hemmed  in  by  the 
Federal  forces.  Escape  was  thought  to  be  impossible, 
and  Meade  consumed  some  ten  days  in  rallying  his 
army  and  preparing  for  another  attack.  Lincoln 
was  extremely  solicitous  that  as  little  delay  as  pos- 
sible should  occur  now.  Hooker  had  been  relieved 
of  command  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  when 
Meade  replaced  him,  because  he  had  failed  to  dis- 
cover Lee's  movements  and  aims.  As  early  as  the 
4th  of  June,  Washington  was  filled  with  rumors  of 
an  intended  advance  of  Lee  into  the  Northern  States, 
and  Lincoln  had  been  informed  of  these.  But  this 
was  nothing  new.  It  was  common  to  expect  a 
"Rebel  invasion"  that  never  came.  The  President 
felt  confident  that  Hooker  was  so  well  informed  con- 
cerning Lee's  movements,  that,  in  reply  to  sugges- 
tions from  friends,  he  said:  " I  am  sure  that  nothing 
of  the  kind  is  to  take  place,  unless,  indeed,  Hooker  is 
again  to  be  out-generalled,"  referring  to  the  failure  at 
Chancellors  ville . 

Lee's  resources  for  an  escape  across  the  Potomac 
after  Gettysburg  were  thought  so  inadequate  that 
he  might  be  "bagged"  whenever  Meade  chose  to 
take  the  steps  to  accomplish  that  feat.  Lincoln  grew 
more  and  more  urgent.  Rumors  reached  Washing- 
ton that  Lee  had  already  begun  to  cross,  and  Halleck, 
at  Lincoln's  order,  sent  messages  to  Meade  informing 
him  of  the  danger.  These  warnings  were  repeated, 
somewhat  to  the  vexation  of  General  Meade,  who 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  371 

had  their  substance  repeated  in  general  orders  to 
his  corps  commanders,  the  feeling  being  that  the 
solicitude  in  Washington  was  unwarranted.  Never- 
theless, by  means  of  improvised  pontoon  bridges, 
Lee's  army  successfully  escaped  into  Virginia  from 
Maryland,  only  one  brigade,  left  to  cover  the  re- 
treat, being  captured  as  the  tardy  advance  of  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac  came  up.  But,  in  spite  of 
this,  great  joy  spread  through  the  loyal  North. 
The  fall  of  Vicksburg  and  the  loss  inflicted  upon 
the  defeated  Rebel  army  of  invasion  were  thought 
to  be  harbingers  of  the  day  when  the  war  should 
cease. 

On  the  4th  day  of  July,  Lincoln  issued  an  an- 
nouncement to  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
briefly  but  gladly  stating  the  result  of  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  and  saying  that  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac had  been  covered  with  the  highest  honor.  He 
concluded  with  these  words:  "The  President  espe- 
cially desires  that  on  this  day '  He  whose  will,  not  ours, 
should  evermore  be  done '  be  everywhere  remem- 
bered and  reverenced  with  profoundest  gratitude." 
That  evening,  the  President  was  visited  by  a  vast 
throng  of  excited  and  joyful  people,  and  a  band 
played  patriotic  airs  under  the  White  House  windows. 
There  had  not  been  of  late  so  many  victories  for  the 
Federal  arms  that  occasions  like  these  were  common. 
The  President  appeared  at  the  window,  the  one 
central  under  the  portico  of  the  mansion,  where  he  so 
often  afterwards  stood  to  address  similar  gatherings, 
and  made  a  short  congratulatory  address  to  the 
multitude. 


372  Abraham  Lincoln 

/ 

He  said :  "  I  do  most  sincerely  thank  God  for  the 
occasion  of  this  call."  Then,  reminding  the  people 
of  the  day  being  the  anniversary  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  recalling  the  immortal  words 
of  that  Declaration,  which  were  the  foundation  of  his 
political  faith,  he  said :  "How long  ago  is  it  ?  Eighty- 
odd  years  since,  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  world,  a  nation  by  its 
representatives  assembled  and  declared,  as  a  self- 
evident  truth,  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  That 
was  the  birthday  of  the  United  States  of  America." 
He  was  deeply  moved  by  the  occurrence  on  this  day, 
above  all  others  in  the  year,  of  events  calculated  to 
impress  upon  the  minds  of  Americans  the  ideas 
declared  in  1776,  so  dear  to  every  patriotic  citizen, 
so  profoundly  fixed  in  his  own  mind,  as  the  under- 
lying principles  of  human  political  freedom.  And, 
after  referring  to  historic  events  of  national  impor- 
tance related  to  Independence  Day,  he  added:  "And 
now  at  this  last  Fourth  of  July  just  passed  we  have 
a  gigantic  rebellion,  at  the  bottom  of  which  is  an 
effort  to  overthrow  the  principle  that  all  men  are 
created  equal.  We  have  the  surrender  of  a  most 
important  position  and  an  army  on  that  very  day." 
The  President,  it  will  be  noticed,  referred  to  the  fall 
of  Vicksburg  and  the  victories  in  Pennsylvania  at 
the  same  time,  and  he  alluded  to  the  latter,  taking 
place  on  the  previous  days,  as  the  triumph  of  the 
Federal  arms  over  those  who  opposed  the  Declaration 
of  Independence. 

On  the  fifteenth  day  of  July  the  President  issued 
his  proclamation  for  a  day  of  national  thanks- 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  373 

giving,  the  first  of  his  administration,  in  which  he 
said: 

"  It  has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  hearken  to  the  sup- 
plications and  prayers  of  an  afflicted  people,  and  to  vouch- 
safe to  the  army  and  the  navy  of  the  United  States 
victories  on  the  land  and  on  the  sea,  so  signal  and  so 
effective  as  to  furnish  reasonable  ground  for  augmented 
confidence  that  the  union  of  these  States  will  be  main- 
tained, their  Constitution  preserved,  and  their  peace  and 
prosperity  permanently  restored.  But  these  victories 
have  been  accorded  not  without  sacrifice  of  life,  limb, 
health,  and  liberty,  incurred  by  brave,  loyal,  and  patriotic 
citizens.  Domestic  affliction  in  every  part  of  the  country 
follows  in  the  train  of  these  fearful  bereavements.  It  is 
meet  and  right  to  recognize  and  confess  the  presence  of 
the  Almighty  Father,  and  the  power  of  his  hand,  equally 
in  these  triumphs  and  these  sorrows." 

He  then  invited  all  the  people  to  assemble  the 
sixth  day  of  August  to 

"render  the  homage  due  to  the  Divine  Majesty  for  the 
wonderful  things  he  has  done  in  the  nation's  behalf,  and 
invoke  the  influences  of  his  holy  spirit  to  subdue  the  anger 
which  has  so  produced  and  so  long  sustained  a  needless 
and  cruel  rebellion ;  to  change  the  hearts  of  the  insurgents ; 
to  guide  the  counsels  of  the  Government  with  wisdom 
adequate  to  so  great  a  national  emergency,  and  to  visit 
with  tender  care  and  consolation,  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  our  land,  all  those  who,  through  the  vi- 
cissitudes of  marches,  voyages,  battles,  and  sieges, 
have  been  brought  to  suffer  in  mind,  body,  or  estate; 
and,  finally,  to  lead  the  whole  nation,  through  paths  of 


374  Abraham  Lincoln 

repentance  and  submission  to  the  divine  will,  back  to  the 
perfect  enjoyment  of  union  and  fraternal  peace." 

Later  in  the  year,  on  the  3d  of  October,  Lincoln 
instituted  the  permanent  national  festival  of  Thanks- 
giving, heretofore  observed  without  any  general  con- 
currence. His  proclamation  set  apart  the  last 
Thursday  in  November  to  be  observed  as  a  day  of 
national  giving  of  thanks  to  God  for  all  his  mercies. 
From  that  time  forward  the  day  has  annually  been 
observed  as  so  designated  by  President  Lincoln. 

Right  on  the  heels  of  these  victories  of  July,  in 
fact  on  the  very  day  that  Lee  recrossed  the  Potomac 
(July  1 3th),  came  dangerous  and  destructive  riots 
in  New  York,  occasioned  by  the  enforcement  of  the 
conscription  laws.  Opposition  to  the  war  had  all 
along  been  more  bitter  among  certain  classes  of  the 
foreign  population  than  any  other,  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  patriotic  volunteers  in 
the  war,  officers  and  privates,  were  adopted  citizens 
of  the  Republic.  When  it  was  found  necessary  to 
enforce  the  draft  in  New  York,  this  opposition  took 
the  form  of  open  violence.  A  mob  broke  into  and 
set  fire  to  the  building  in  which  were  the  head-quar- 
ters of  the  officers  who  were  conducting  the  drafting 
operations.  The  rioters  prevented  the  firemen  from 
subduing  the  flames,  and  much  property  was  de- 
stroyed by  fire  and  by  the  mob.  The  criminal  classes, 
like  birds  of  prey,  rose  at  the  sight,  and  for  several 
days  the  city  was  almost  at  the  mercy  of  a  mob  of 
desperate  men.  Murder,  pillage,  and  incendiarism 
ran  riot  for  a  time;  the  police,  nobly  although  they 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  375 

fought  to  preserve  order,  were  too  few  in  numbers  to 
quell  the  disturbances  that  broke  out  in  various  parts 
of  the  city.  The  State  militia  were  absent  defending 
the  lines  in  which  the  rebellion  had  been  hitherto 
confined. 

The  fury  of  the  rioters  appeared  to  be  especially 
directed  against  the  colored  people.  An  asylum  for 
colored  half -orphans  was  set  on  fire,  and  its  helpless 
inmates  were  driven  into  the  streets.  Wherever  the 
rioters  could  find  a  colored  man,  he  was  caught,  mal- 
treated, and  in  some  instances  hung  to  the  nearest 
lamp-post  or  tree.  The  worst  elements  of  the  city 
were  on  top,  and  for  a  time  it  appeared  as  if  a 
volcano  had  broken  through  the  social  crust  of  the 
city.  At  first  the  President  proposed  to  send 
General  Kilpatrick,  a  dashing  cavalry  officer,  to  the 
scene  of  the  riot,  thinking  that  his  name  would  be  a 
terror  to  the  lawless  gangs  that  had  ravaged  the  city. 
Horatio  Seymour,  Governor  of  the  State,  harangued 
the  mob  in  dulcet  tones,  addressing  them  as  "My 
friends,"  and  urging  them  to  disperse.  But  sterner 
measures  were  soon  required;  troops  were  recalled 
from  Pennsylvania,  and  after  a  demonstration  of 
military  force  the  riot  was  suppressed  and  order 
restored. 

In  August,  Lincoln  was  invited  with  great  urgency 
to  attend  a  meeting  called  to  assemble  in  Springfield, 
Illinois,  to  concert  measures  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  Union  and  to  consider  the  condition  of  public 
affairs.  In  a  letter  written  August  26th,  he  ex- 
pressed his  regret  that  he  could  not  attend  the  meet- 
ing, and  in  a  few  well-chosen  sentences  he  outlined 


376  Abraham  Lincoln 

his  policy.  Alluding  to  the  notion — then  beginning 
to  be  more  prevalent  than  it  had  been — that  there 
might  be  a  peaceful  compromise  with  the  Rebels, 
he  asked  how  such  a  compromise  could  disband  or 
expel  from  Northern  soil  the  Rebel  army.  He  urged 
that  the  strength  of  the  rebellion  was  its  army,  and 
that  a  compromise,  to  be  effective,  must  be  with 
those  who  controlled  that  army.  And  he  promised 
that  any  proposition  coming  from  any  persons  able 
to  control  the  Rebel  forces  should  be  entertained. 
He  showed  by  many  forcible  illustrations  that  war 
was  destructive,  and  that  in  time  of  war  property 
must  be  destroyed.  Taking  the  common  view  that 
slaves  are  property,  he  argued  that  the  destruction 
of  African  slavery  in  the  Southern  States  was  one  of 
the  means  adopted  for  the  crippling  of  the  rebellion. 
And  in  answer  to  the  oft -repeated  assertion  that 
certain  objectors  would  not  fight  to  free  negroes,  he 
urged  them  to  fight  to  save  the  Union.  The  closing 
paragraphs  of  this  letter,  admirable  examples  of 
Lincoln's  homely  and  forcible  figures  of  speech,  were 
as  follows: 

"  The  Father  of  Waters  again  goes  unvexed  to  the  sea. 
Thanks  to  the  great  Northwest  for  it ;  nor  yet  wholly  to 
them.  Three  hundred  miles  up  they  met  New  England, 
Empire,  Keystone,  and  Jersey,  hewing  their  way  right  and 
left.  The  sunny  South,  too,  in  more  colors  than  one, 
also  lent  a  helping  hand.  On  the  spot,  their  part  of  the 
history  was  jotted  down  in  black  and  white.  The  job 
was  a  great  national  one,  and  let  none  be  slighted  who 
bore  an  honorable  part  in  it.  And  while  those  who  have 
cleared  the  great  river  may  well  be  proud,  even  that  is  not 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  377 

all.  It  is  hard  to  say  that  anything  has  been  more 
bravely  and  well  done  than  at  Antietam,  Murfreesboro, 
Gettysburg,  and  on  many  fields  of  less  note.  Nor  must 
Uncle  Sam's  web-feet  be  forgotten.  At  all  the  watery 
margins  they  have  been  present,  not  only  on  the  deep  sea, 
the  broad  bay,  and  the  rapid  river,  but  also  up  the 
narrow,  muddy  bayou,  and  wherever  the  ground  was  a 
little  damp,  they  have  been  and  made  their  tracks. 
Thanks  to  all.  For  the  great  Republic — for  the  principle 
it  lives  by  and  keeps  alive — for  man's  vast  future — 
thanks  to  all. 

"  Peace  does  not  appear  so  distant  as  it  did.  I  hope  it 
will  come  soon  and  come  to  stay;  and  so  come  as  to  be 
worth  the  keeping  in  all  future  time.  It  will  then  have 
been  proved  that  among  freemen  there  can  be  no  success- 
ful appeal  from  the  ballot  to  the  bullet,  and  that  they  who 
take  such  appeal  are  sure  to  lose  their  case  and  pay  the 
cost.  And  there  will  be  some  black  men  who  can  remem- 
ber that  with  silent  tongue  and  clenched  teeth  and  steady 
eye  and  well-poised  bayonet  they  have  helped  mankind 
on  to  this  great  consummation,  while  I  fear  there  will  be 
some  white  ones  unable  to  forget  that  with  malignant 
heart  and  deceitful  speech  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it." 

On  the  igth  of  November,  1863,  the  battle-field  of 
Gettysburg  was  solemnly  dedicated  as  a  burying- 
place  for  the  repose  of  the  remains  of  those  who  had 
yielded  up  their  lives  on  that  now  historic  ground. 
The  services  were  solemn  and  impressive.  The 
principal  oration  was  made  by  Edward  Everett,  of 
Massachusetts.  A  few  days  before  the  ceremony 
Mr.  Everett  sent  the  President  a  copy  of  his  address, 
printed  on  one  sheet  of  a  Boston  newspaper.  It  was 


378  Abraham  Lincoln 

very  long.  Lincoln  looked  it  over  with  great  gravity 
and  said:  "It  was  very  kind  in  Mr.  Everett  to  send 
me  this,  in  order  that  I  might  not  go  over  the  same 
ground  that  he  has.  There  is  no  danger  that  I  shall. 
My  speech  is  all  blocked  out.  It  is  very  short." 
The  speech  was  written  out  in  Washington,  but 
Lincoln  revised  it  somewhat  after  he  reached  Gettys- 
burg. As  he  read  it  from  the  manuscript,  he  made 
a  few  verbal  changes.  These  changes  did  not  appear 
in  the  report  printed  at  the  time  by  the  newspapers, 
but  they  were  embodied  in  the  draft  made  for  per- 
manent publication,  afterwards,  by  Lincoln.  As 
delivered  and  corrected  by  its  illustrious  author,  the 
speech  was  as  follows : 

"Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  on  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty, 
and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created 
equal. 

"Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing 
whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so 
dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle- 
field of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of 
that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who  here  gave 
their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether 
fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do  this. 

"  But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we  cannot 
consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The  brave 
men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here  have  consecrated 
it,  far  above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The 
world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  say 
here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for 
us  the  living,  rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  379 

work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly 
advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the 
great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  from  these  honored 
dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  that  cause  for  which 
they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devotion ;  that  we  here 
highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall  not  have  died  in  vain 
— that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have  a  new  birth  of 
freedom — and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

This  wonderful  address,  so  compact  of  wisdom  and 
the  simplest  elements  of  eloquence,  was  received  with 
becoming  solemnity.  Many  were  moved  to  tears. 
But  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  oration  of  the  silver- 
tongued  Everett,  then  one  of  the  most  admired  of 
American  orators,  momentarily  attracted  greater 
attention.  The  very  shortness  of  Lincoln's  little 
speech  caused  it  to  be  almost  overlooked  at  the 
time.  But  in  a  few  days,  when  the  people  of  the 
country  at  large  had  fairly  digested  it,  and  its  pa- 
triotic and  human  lesson  had  sunk  into  the  minds  of 
men,  public  opinion  seized  upon  it  and  glorified  it  as 
one  of  the  few  masterpieces  in  oratory  that  the  world 
has  received.  As  time  has  rolled  away,  these  preg- 
nant sentences  have  become  classic,  and  generations 
yet  unborn  may  wonder  that  they  did  not  at  once 
arouse  great  enthusiasm. 

About  this  time,  too,  Lincoln  put  forth  another  re- 
markable utterance.  In  his  visits  to  the  army  he 
had  been  pained  to  see  that  the  Sabbath  was  very 
scantily  observed  by  the  men  while  in  camp,  and 
that  much  and  frequent  needless  profanity  disfigured 


380  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  talk  of  men  and  officers.  He  issued  an  order. 
He  knew  that  an  army  could  not  be  expected  to  be  a 
strict  keeper  of  the  Sabbath,  but  he  saw  that  many 
of  the  occupations  of  the  soldiers  were  glaringly  and 
unnecessarily  out  of  harmony  with  the  day.  But  in 
this  letter,  for  it  was  only  a  circular  and  hardly  an 
order,  he  said: 

"The  importance  for  man  and  beast  of  the  prescribed 
weekly  rest,  the  sacred  rights  of  Christian  soldiers  and 
sailors,  a  becoming  deference  to  the  best  sentiment  of  a 
Christian  people,  and  a  due  regard  for  the  Divine  will 
demand  that  Sunday  labor  in  the  army  and  navy  be 
reduced  to  the  measure  of  strict  necessity.  The  dis- 
cipline and  character  of  the  national  forces  should  not 
suffer,  nor  the  cause  they  defend  be  imperilled,  by  the 
profanation  of  the  day  or  the  name  of  the  Most  High." 

And  on  the  latter-mentioned  habit,  that  of  pro- 
fane swearing,  he  took  occasion  to  admonish  a  cer- 
tain general,  himself  addicted  to  the  vice,  to  use  his 
authority  to  correct  it  among  his  men. 

The  year  closed  auspiciously,  so  far  as  military 
operations  in  the  West  were  concerned.  In  October, 
Grant  took  command  of  a  large  force,  being  stationed 
at  the  head  of  the  military  division  of  the  Mississippi, 
with  head-quarters  at  Louisville,  Kentucky.  The 
departments  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Cumberland  were 
merged  in  this  division,  General  George  H.  Thomas 
being  in  command  of  the  latter  army.  Hooker, 
with  fifteen  thousand  men,  was  sent  from  the  East  to 
the  West,  and  Sheridan  and  Sherman  were  sub- 
ordinate commanders  in  this  new  and  formidable 


The  Turning  of  the  Tide  381 

combination  under  Grant.  The  battles  of  Mission- 
ary Ridge,  Lookout  Mountain,  and  Chattanooga 
followed,  and  the  Rebels  were  sent  flying  out  of  Ten- 
nessee. Burnside  was  shut  up  in  Knoxville,  Ten- 
nessee, for  a  time,  and  there  was  great  solicitude  all 
over  the  country  on  his  account,  as  his  communica- 
tions with  the  North  were  temporarily  cut  off.  One 
day  Washington  was  startled.  The  long  silence 
concerning  Burnside 's  movements  was  broken  by 
an  urgent  call  from  him  for  succor.  Lincoln,  re- 
lieved by  the  news  that  Burnside  was  safe,  at  least, 
said  that  he  was  reminded  of  a  woman  who  lived  in  a 
forest  clearing  in  Indiana,  her  cabin  surrounded  by 
hazel-bushes,  in  which  some  of  her  numerous  flock 
of  children  were  continually  being  lost.  When  she 
heard  a  squall  from  one  of  these  in  the  distance, 
although  she  knew  that  the  child  was  in  danger,  per- 
haps frightened  by  a  rattlesnake,  she  would  say: 
"Thank  God!  there's  one  of  my  young  ones  that  isn't 
lost." 

Sherman  was  sent  to  the  relief  of  Burnside,  and,  by 
forced  marches,  reached  him  and  sent  the  Rebel  army 
under  Longstreet  back  into  Virginia.  The  loyal 
mountaineers  were  delivered  from  their  persecutors, 
and  Tennessee  was  delivered  from  what  proved  to  be 
the  last  formidable  attempt  to  hold  the  State  for  the 
Confederacy. 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 

POLITICAL   COMPLICATIONS. 

A  "President-Making"  Congress — Activity  of  Lincoln's  Opponents — 
Grant  Appointed  Lieutenant-General — Beginning  of  an  Aggres- 
sive Campaign — Federal  Successes  in  the  Southwest — Sheridan 
in  the  Valley  of  the  Shenandoah — Political  Troubles  in  Missouri 
— Lincoln  Renominated — McClellan  the  Democratic  Nominee — 
A  Diversion  in  Favor  of  Fremont — Peace  Negotiations  at  Niagara 
— Five  Hundred  Thousand  Men  Called  Out — Lincoln  Re-elected 
— Renewed  Talk  of  Peace — A  Peace  Conference  at  Hampton 
Roads — "The  President's  Last,  Shortest,  and  Best  Speech" — 
The  Second  Inauguration. 

DURING  the  winter  of  1863-4  there  was  no  little 
President-making  in  Congress ;  for  the  session 
before  the  time  for  nominating  Presidential  candidates 
is  usually  known  as  a  President -making  Congress. 
This  time,  however,  there  was  less  of  this  sort  of 
political  skirmishing  than  ever  before  or  since.  The 
Democrats,  whose  stock-in-trade,  so  to  speak,  was 
opposition  to  the  war,  were  largely  in  a  minority. 
The  Republicans,  although  divided  in  their  counsels, 
were  bent  on  a  more  energetic  support  of  the  ad- 
ministration than  ever,  believing  as  many  did  that 
the  war  was  now  nearing  its  close,  and  that  it  would 
really  come  to  an  end  before  the  next  Presidential 
term  ended — March  4,  1869.  The  Republican  op- 
position to  Lincoln  came  from  those  who  did  not 
consider  him  sufficiently  radical  for  the  time.  These 
demanded  radical  measures  affecting  slavery  in  the 

382 


Political  Complications  383 

border  States;  and  they  thought  that  a  more  vigor- 
ous prosecution  of  the  war  might  be  had  under  the 
leadership  of  a  more  determined  and  alert  President. 
The  radical  Republicans,  as  a  rule,  favored  the  nomi- 
nation of  Mr.  Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury. 
Some,  however,  expressed  a  preference  for  General 
Fremont,  whose  unfortunate  career  in  Missouri  had 
excited  their  sympathies,  if  not  their  indignation 
against  Lincoln. 

On  his  part,  Lincoln  made  no  sign  of  anxiety  for  a 
renomination  by  his  party.  With  more  sagacity 
than  most  of  his  friends  possessed,  and  with  all  the 
springs  of  action  within  his  reach,  he  doubtless  knew 
that  events  would  so  shape  themselves  that  his  re- 
nomination  was  inevitable.  He  made  no  secret, 
among  his  personal  friends,  of  his  desire  to  be  elected 
to  a  second  term.  In  conversation  with  one  of  these 
he  said:  "I  am  only  the  people's  attorney  in  this 
great  affair.  I  am  trying  to  do  the  best  I  can  for  my 
client — the  country.  But  if  the  people  desire  to 
change  their  attorney,  it  is  not  for  me  to  resist  or 
complain.  Nevertheless,  between  you  and  me,  I 
think  the  change  would  be  impolitic,  whoever  might 
be  substituted  for  the  present  counsel."  To  another 
he  said,  with  his  inveterate  habit  of  putting  a  large 
truth  in  the  form  of  a  pleasantry:  "I  don't  believe  it 
is  wise  to  swap  horses  while  crossing  a  stream."  In 
truth,  after  men  had  anxiously  canvassed  the  names 
of  all  who  were  in  the  least  worthy  to  be  considered 
eligible  to  the  Presidency,  succeeding  Lincoln,  they 
almost  invariably  returned  to  him  as  the  only  man  to 
be  thought  of  with  seriousness. 


384  Abraham  Lincoln 

One  of  the  important  military  events  of  that  winter 
was  the  appointment  of  General  Grant  to  the  rank 
of  lieutenant-general.  Hitherto,  the  highest  rank 
in  the  army  had  been  that  of  major-general.  The 
title  of  general-in-chief,  borne  by  Halleck,  was  tem- 
porary, a  mere  expedient,  and  not  distinctly  recog- 
nized by  usage.  The  rank  of  lieutenant-general  was 
created  by  act  of  Congress,  with  the  tacit  under- 
standing that  it  was  to  be  conferred  upon  Grant, 
whose  almost  unbroken  series  of  victories  in  the  West 
had  by  this  time  convinced  the  people  that  here  was 
at  last  "the  coming  man  "  for  whom  they  had  so  long 
waited.  The  act  creating  the  rank,  giving  its  wearer 
command  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  was 
warmly  approved  by  Lincoln,  and  was  zealously  sup- 
ported in  Congress  by  Elihu  B.  Washburne,  of  Illi- 
nois, a  steadfast  and  influential  friend  of  Grant,  from 
the  time  when  this  soldier,  then  unknown  and  unap- 
preciated, began  his  career  as  Colonel  of  the  Twenty- 
first  Illinois  Regiment. 

On  the  22d  of  February,  1864,  the  President  sent  to 
Congress  a  message  approving  the  act  creating  the 
rank  of  Lieutenant-General  of  the  Armies  of  the 
United  States,  and  nominating  U.  S.  Grant,  of  Illi- 
nois, to  that  rank.  The  nomination  was  confirmed 
on  the  2d  of  March,  and  the  President  immediately 
requested  the  presence  in  Washington  of  the  newly 
appointed  Lieutenant-General.  It  was  one  of  the 
scandals  of  the  time  that  army  officers  of  every  grade 
visited  the  national  capital  in  great  numbers  to  seek 
promotion  in  rank  or  to  advance  their  private  ends 
in  some  other  way.  So  great  an  abuse  did  this  self- 


ABRAHAM   LINCOLN  AND  HIS  SON   "TAD 

FROM  AN  OIL  PAINTING  BY  F.  B.  CARPENTER 
{Courtesy  of  W.  C.  Crane,  Esq.) 


Political  Complications  385 

seeking  become,  that  the  War  Department  was  com- 
pelled to  issue  an  order  forbidding  army  officers  to 
visit  the  capital  without  official  permission.  Up  to 
that  time,  Grant  had  never  gone  into  Washington, 
nor  had  he  asked  for  permission.  He  attended  to  his 
duties  as  a  soldier  until  summoned  to  the  seat  of 
government  by  the  President. 

Grant  arrived  in  Washington,  to  accept  his  new 
commission,  on  the  8th  of  March.  That  evening 
there  chanced  to  be  a  Presidential  levee  at  the  White 
House.  It  was  a  public  reception,  open  to  all  who 
chose  to  come.  Thither  went  Grant,  entering  the 
reception  room  unannounced.  He  was  instantly 
recognized  by  those  who  had  seen  his  portraits, 
printed  in  the  newspapers  and  circulated  by  means 
of  the  photographs  then  becoming  common.  He 
was  greeted  very  warmly,  almost  affectionately,  by 
Lincoln,  and  it  was  speedily  noised  about  that  the 
hero  of  Vicksburg  was  in  the  rooms,  and  the  pressure 
to  see  him  was  so  great  that  the  modest  General  was 
induced  to  stand  on  a  sofa,  where  he  rose  above  the 
crowd  and  was  regarded  with  admiring  eyes.'  When 
he  bade  the  President  good-night,  he  said:  "This  is  a 
warmer  campaign  than  I  have  witnessed  during  the 
war." 

Next  day,  by  appointment,  he  waited  upon  the 
President,  who,  in  the  presence  of  members  of  the 
Cabinet  and  a  few  personal  friends,  presented  him 
with  his  commission,  saying : 

"General  Grant,  the  nation's  appreciation  of  what  you 
have  done,  and  its  reliance  upon  you  for  what  remains  to 


25- 


386  Abraham  Lincoln 

be  done  in  the  existing  great  struggle,  are  now  presented 
with  this  commission,  constituting  you  Lieutenant- 
General  in  the  Army  of  the  United  States.  With  this 
high  honor  devolves  upon  you  also  a  corresponding 
responsibility.  As  the  country  here  intrusts  you,  so, 
under  God,  it  will  sustain  you.  I  need  scarcely  add  that 
with  what  I  here  speak  for  the  nation  goes  my  own  hearty 
personal  concurrence." 

General  Grant  accepted  the  commission  in  a  few 
modest  words  expressive  of  appreciation  of  the  high 
honor  conferred  upon  him,  and  acknowledging  his 
sense  of  responsibility,  his  dependence  upon  the 
valorous  armies,  and,  above  all,  as  he  said,  "the 
favor  of  that  Providence  which  leads  both  nations 
and  men."  The  General  immediately  visited  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  of  which  General  Meade  still 
retained  command.  Then  he  .returned  to  Washing- 
ton, where,  without  his  knowledge,  a  dinner  had  been 
arranged  by  Mrs.  Lincoln,  at  the  White  House,  at 
which  he  was  to  be  the  principal  guest.  At  the  close 
of  an  important  interview  with  the  President,  during 
which  the  General  outlined  his  plan  of  military 
operations,  so  far  as  they  could  be  arranged  at  that 
time,  he  announced  his  intention  of  leaving  at  once 
for  the  West.  Lincoln  told  him  of  the  expected 
dinner,  but  Grant  quietly  insisted  that  he  must  go. 
"Besides,"  said  the  General,  "I  have  had  enough  of 
this  show  business,  Mr.  President."  And  the  Gen- 
eral left  for  the  West  without  waiting  for  the  dinner 
and  the  brilliant  invited  company.  This  incident 
greatly  pleased  Lincoln,  who  up  to  that  time  had  not 


Political  Complications  387 

met  any  military  officer  who  was  so  willing  to  forego 
"the  show  business." 

General  Sherman  was  assigned  to  the  command  of 
the  military  division  of  the  Mississippi,  succeeding 
Grant,  who,  in  an  order  dated  March  17,  1864,  took 
command  of  the  armies  of  the  United  States,  with 
head-quarters  in  the  field,  and,  until  further  notice, 
with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac.  Heretofore  there 
had  been  no  concert  of  action  between  the  armies  in 
the  West  and  those  in  the  East.  They  had  acted 
independently  of  each  other;  and  between  the  two 
great  divisions  there  had  been  innumerable  jealousies 
and  heart-burnings,  both  as  to  relative  merits  and  as 
to  military  promotions.  Henceforth  this  was  to 
cease.  These  bodies  would  not  any  longer  be,  as 
Grant  said,  "like  a  balky  team,  no  two  ever  pulling 
together  " ;  thereby  enabling  the  enemy,  who  operated 
on  interior  lines,  to  attend  to  the  one,  or  the  other, 
that  happened  to  be  active  while  the  other  was  not  in 
motion.  Henceforth  the  enemy  was  to  be  pressed 
on  all  sides,  and  without  cessation.  Lincoln,  on  his 
part,  sent  Grant  into  the  field  with  these  words: 
"You  are  vigilant  and  self-reliant.  Pleased  with 
this,  I  wish  not  to  obtrude  any  restraints  or  con- 
straints upon  you.  If  there  be  anything  in  my  power 
to  give,  do  not  fail  to  let  me  know.  And  now,  with 
a  brave  army  and  a  just  cause,  may  God  sustain  you. ' ' 

When  the  invincible  hero  of  the  West  pitched  his 
tent  with  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  on  the  banks  of 
the  Rapidan,  everybody  felt  that  the  time  had  now 
come  when  the  fate  of  the  Confederacy  was  to  be 
determined.  To  use  Grant's  own  words,  the  policy 


388  Abraham  Lincoln 

now  was  "to  hammer  continuously  against  th& 
armed  force  of  the  enemy  and  his  resources,,  until,  by 
mere  attrition,  if  in  no  other  way,  there  should  be 
nothing  left  for  him  but  an  equal  submission  with 
the  loyal  section  of  our  common  country  to  the  Con- 
stitution and  laws  of  the  land." 

The  campaign  against  the  Rebel  capital  opened  in 
May,  Meade  commanding  the  Army  of  the  Potomac, 
which  was  now  reinforced  by  the  Ninth  Corps,  under 
Burnside.  The  other  corps  commanders  were  Han- 
cock, Warren,  and  Sedgwick.  The  army  moved  at 
midnight,  on  the  3d  of  the  month.  On  the  5th  and 
6th  were  fought  the  bloody  battles  of  the  Wilderness, 
battles  that  once  more  filled  Washington  with 
wounded,  and  were  the  beginning  of  the  long  series 
of  struggles  with  the  enemy  that  resulted  at  last  in 
his  overthrow  and  surrender.  Success  generally 
crowned  the  Federal  arms,  and  the  Rebels  were 
steadily  pressed  backward  upon  Richmond,  although 
not  without  a  gallant  and  desperate  resistance.  The 
excitement  in  Washington  at  this  time  was  intense. 
At  every  sound  of  victory  from  the  front,  the  Presi- 
dent was  visited  by  bands  of  enthusiastic  citizens, 
who,  with  music  and  cheering,  invited  Lincoln  to 
come  to  the  now  historic  window  of  the  White  House 
and  speak  to  the  crowds.  On  one  of  these  occasions, 
May  i  ith,  Lincoln  read  to  the  enthusiastic  assembly 
a  despatch  just  received  from  Grant,  in  which  he  said : 
"  Our  losses  have  been  heavy,  as  well  as  those  of  the 
enemy,  and  I  propose  to  fight  it  out  on  this  line,  if  it 
takes  all  summer." 

On  another  occasion,  near  .the  end  of  the  war, 


Political  Complications  389 

apparently  being  at  a  loss  for  anything  further  to  say 
after  he  had  congratulated  the  people  on  a  victory  of 
the  Federal  arms,  he  asked  that  the  band  should  play 
Dixie,  the  favorite  air  of  the  Rebels;  and  he  ex- 
plained his  request  by  saying  that  he  always  did  like 
that  tune,  and  "General  Grant  has  captured  it 
now,  I  believe,  and  henceforth  it  is  ours  by  the  laws 
of  war."  He  said,  privately,  that  a  speech  in  reply 
to  a  serenade  was  the  most  difficult  job  that  he  under- 
took in  the  line  of  speech-making.  "For,"  he  said, 
"while  I  am  glad  to  congratulate  the  people  on  our 
victories,  I  do  not  like  even  to  seem  to  glorify  our- 
selves at  the  expense  of  a  fallen  foe.  And,  besides, 
after  you  have  said  you  are  glad,  what  more  is  there 
to  say?" 

Not  only  with  victories  of  the  Army  of  the  Poto- 
mac, but  with  those  of  the  armies  of  the  West  were 
the  people  now  glad.  Sherman  had  opened  his  cam- 
paign on  the  western  side  of  the  Alleghanies  at  the 
same  time  that  Grant  had  begun  his  aggressive 
movements.  The  Rebels  had  measurably  recovered 
from  their  overwhelming  defeat  at  Missionary  Ridge, 
and  had  filled  up  their  depleted  ranks  once  more. 
Sherman  pressed  the  enemy,  after  serious  fighting  all 
along  the  line,  driving  him  back,  almost  inch  by  inch, 
into  Georgia,  fighting  the  battles  of  Resaca,  Alla- 
toona,  and  around  Kennesaw,  and  finally  invested 
Atlanta.  On  the  226.  of  July,  Atlanta  fell  into  his 
hands,  and,  requiring  that  important  railroad  centre 
for  a  base  of  supplies,  he  sent  out  the  people  of  the 
city.  It  was  in  vain  that  the  Rebel  general,  Hood, 
and  the  mayor  of  the  city  protested  against  what  they 


39°  Abraham  Lincoln 

called  an  act  of  barbarity.  In  his  reply  Sherman 
said  that  the  war  must  be  prosecuted,  and  that  war 
was  barbarous.  "You  cannot  qualify  war  in  harsher 
terms  than  I  will,"  he  said.  "War  is  cruelty,  and 
you  cannot  refine  it;  and  those  who  have  brought 
war  upon  our  country  deserve  all  the  curses  and 
maledictions  that  a  people  can  pour  out."  These 
sentiments  appalled  the  Rebels,  who  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  remonstrate  effectively,  like  so  many 
politicians,  when  they  saw  the  cause  they  held  being 
seriously  crippled  by  the  tactics  of  those  against 
whom  they  defended  it. 

Hood,  hoping  to  drive  Sherman  to  the  northward, 
moved  against  the  Tennessee  country  once  more, 
passing  to  the  right  of  Atlanta.  The  Federal  lines, 
under  Thomas  and  Schofield,  were  formed  in  front  of 
Nashville.  Then  Hood  was  attacked  in  his  turn, 
and  after  a  fierce  and  bloody  fight,  continuing 
through  two  days,  the  Rebel  army  under  Hood  was 
ignominiously  put  to  flight.  The  Rebels  broke  and 
fled  in  the  utmost  confusion,  giving  up  several 
thousand  prisoners  and  a  vast  amount  of  arms, 
ammunition,  and  artillery.  Some  fragments  of  the 
once  proud  army  of  Hood  joined  themselves  to  other 
organizations,  but  the  army  itself  disappeared  from 
the  campaign.  This  memorable  annihilation  of 
Hood's  force  astonished  and  delighted  all  the  loyal 
people.  Lincoln,  elated  by  the  defeat  of  what  had 
so  long  been  a  menacing  force  on  the  borders  of 
Tennessee,  was  reminded  by  its  collapse  of  the  fate  of 
a  savage  dog  belonging  to  one  of  his  neighbors,  in  the 
frontier  settlement  in  which  he  lived  in  his  youth. 


Political  Complications  391 

The  dog,  he  said,  was  the  terror  of  the  neighborhood, 
and  its  owner,  a  churlish  and  quarrelsome  fellow, 
took  pleasure  in  the  brute's  formidable  attitude. 
Finally,  all  other  means  having  failed  to  subdue  the 
creature,  a  man  loaded  a  lump  of  meat  with  a  charge 
of  powder,  to  which  was  attached  a  slow  fuse.  This 
was  dropped  where  the  dreaded  dog  would  find  it, 
and  the  animal  gulped  down  the  tempting  bit. 
There  was  a  dull  rumbling,  a  muffled  explosion,  and 
fragments  of  the  dog  were  seen  flying  in  all  directions. 
The  grieved  owner,  picking  up  the  shattered  remains 
of  his  cruel  favorite,  said:  "He  was  a  good  dog,  but, 
as  a  dog,  his  days  of  usefulness  are  over."  "Hood's 
army  was  a  good  army,"  said  Lincoln,  by  way  of  com- 
ment, "and  we  were  all  afraid  of  it ;  but,  as  an  army, 
its  usefulness  is  gone." 

Military  operations  on  the  line  of  the  James  River, 
Virginia,  were  a  part  of  Grant's  plan,  and  General  B. 
F.  Butler  took  possession  of  the  City  Point,  on  the 
James,  where  Grant  subsequently  established  a  base 
of  supplies.  Butler,  being  attacked  here,  fell  back  on 
the  peninsula  between  the  James  and  the  Appo- 
mattox,  where,  being  shut  in  by  a  line  of  Rebel  in- 
trenchments,  he  was  "bottled -up"  as  Grant  said  at 
the  time. 

General  Hunter  was  sent  to  clear  the  valley  of  the 
Shenandoah  of  the  enemy,  but,  being  confronted  by  a 
superior  force,  he  was  compelled  to  retire  by  the  way 
of  the  Kanawha. 

The  Rebel  General  Early,  being  only  temporarily 
delayed  by  the  opposition  offered  him  by  the  Federal 
forces  under  General  Lew  Wallace,  pressed  on  toward 


392  Abraham  Lincoln 

Washington,  entered  Maryland  once  more,  and 
plundered  and  burned  residences  not  more  than  seven 
miles  from  the  national  capital,  the  house  of  Mont- 
gomery Blair  being  one  of  these.  Grant  promptly 
despatched  two  army  corps,  intercepted  the  Rebel 
advance,  and  saved  Washington  from  attack.  But 
it  was  for  a  time  a  season  of  panic  and  alarm  in  the 
capital.  From  Fort  Stevens,  in  the  outer  line  of 
defences,  Lincoln  saw  the  repulse  of  Early  and  the 
flight  of  the  Rebels. 

Later  in  the  year,  Grant  sent  his  trusty  lieutenant, 
Sheridan  to  clear  the  valley  effectually  of  the  raiding 
Rebels,  who  gathered  their  supplies  from  the  rich 
farms  of  the  Shenandoah  region.  In  August  and 
September  of  1864,  Sheridan  did  his  work  so  well  that 
his  truthful  boast  was  that  a  crow  flying  over  the 
valley  would  have  to  carry  his  rations  with  him. 

During  this  summer,  political  feeling  ran  high. 
The  conventions  for  the  nomination  of  Presidential 
candidates  were  drawing  near,  and  all  parties  were 
marshalling  their  forces  for  the  struggle.  A  con- 
siderable faction  inside  the  Republican  party  opposed 
the  renomination  of  Lincoln.  These  radicals,  as 
they  were  called,  were  the  malcontents  who  were 
dissatisfied  with  the  policy  of  the  administration,  so 
far  as  that  related  to  politics.  They  thought  it  not 
sufficiently  pronounced,  especially  as  it  related  to 
slavery  and  the  treatment  of  the  South  and  the  border 
States.  They  were  also  of  the  opinion  that  a  more 
vigorous  prosecution  of  the  war  was  needed.  A 
fierce  political  quarrel  in  Missouri,  fomented  by  the 
friends  and  the  opponents  of  the  Blairs,  who  were  in- 


Political  Complications  393 

fluential  in  the  councils  of  the  Government,  was  also 
in  progress,  and  the  radical  Republicans  of  that  State 
were  opposed  -to  Lincoln  as  well  as  to  the  Blairs. 
Horace  Greeley,  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  was  one 
of  those  who  violently  spoke  and  wrote  against  the 
renomination.  And  several  active  politicians  in 
Washington  set  on  foot  measures  to  defeat  that  step 
on  the  part  of  the  Republican  party.  Some  of  these 
prepared  a  secret  circular  designed  to  solidify  the 
anti-Lincoln  feeling  and  bring  about  the  nomination 
of  Mr.  Chase,  or  some  other  advanced  anti-slavery 
candidate. 

Lincoln  was  not  unaware  of  these  movements,  but 
he  took  no  steps  to  counteract  them.  When  he  was 
told  that  some  of  his  opponents  were  considering  the 
name  of  General  Grant  as  a  possible  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  he  said:  "If  the  people  think  that  Gen- 
eral Grant  can  end  the  rebellion  sooner  by  being  in 
this  place,  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  get  out  of  it."  And 
when  remonstrated  with,  on  account  of  his  making 
appointments  of  those  who  were  notoriously  opposed 
to  his  renomination,  he  said:  "If  this  man  is  likely 
to  make  a  good  and  faithful  public  officer,  as  I 
believe  he  is,  have  I  any  right  to  inquire  further?" 

In  fact,  Lincoln  trusted  the  people,  and  he  knew 
that  the  people  trusted  him.  The  result  justified 
this  calm  and  unruffled  confidence.  The  Republican 
national  convention  was  held  in  Baltimore,  June  8, 
1864.  By  this  time  Lincoln's  renomination  was  so 
assured  that  almost  no  man  who  offered  himself  as  a 
delegate  to  that  convention  was  opposed  to  him. 
The  only  strife  in  the  convention  was  for  the  honor 


394  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  being  the  first  to  bring  Lincoln's  name  before  the 
delegates  for  their  approval.  Lincoln  was  nomi- 
nated with  scarcely  a  dissenting  vote,  and  in  the 
midst  of  a  vociferous  enthusiasm  that  rivalled  that  of 
the  famous  Chicago  convention  of  1860,  when  the 
name  of  the  son  of  the  backwoods  and  the  frontier 
was  first  brought  before  the  people  of  the  United 
States  as  a  candidate  for  the  chief  magistracy. 
Andrew  Johnson,  of  Tennessee,  who  had  won  popular 
confidence  and  renown  as  military  governor  of  that 
State,  was  nominated  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  This 
nomination  was  made  from  motives  of  political  policy. 
Johnson,  born  in  a  slave  State,  was  a  fierce  and  un- 
compromising  supporter  of  the  Union,  and  corre- 
spondingly fierce  in  his  hatred  of  rebellion.  In  the 
coming  struggle  to  make  a  satisfactory  readjust- 
ment of  the  terms  of  union,  when  the  war  should 
be  over,  it  was  thought  he  would  strengthen  the  ad- 
ministration, as  he  would  now  strengthen  the  ticket. 
The  only  votes  cast  against  Lincoln  in  the  conven- 
tion were  those  of  the  Missouri  delegation,  acting 
under  instructions. 

In  accepting  the  nomination,  Lincoln  said:  I  view 
this  call  to  a  second  term  as  in  nowise  more  flattering 
to  myself  than  as  an  expression  of  the  public  judg- 
ment that  I  may  better  finish  a  difficult  work  than 
any  one  less  severely  schooled  to  the  task."  At 
that  time  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  forever  prohibiting  slavery,  was 
pending,  and,  referring  to  that,  Lincoln  said:  "Such 
an  amendment  as  is  now  proposed  becomes  a  fitting 
and  necessary  conclusion  to  the  final  success  of  the 


Political  Complications  395 

Union  cause.  Such  alone  can  meet  all  cavils.  The 
unconditional  Union  men,  North  and  South,  per- 
ceive its  importance  and  embrace  it.  In  the  joint 
names  of  Liberty  and  Union,  let  us  labor  to  give  it 
legal  form  and  practical  effect." 

In  August  of  that  year,  the  Democratic  national 
convention  met  in  Chicago.  There  were  two  factions 
in  that  party,  as  in  the  Republican  party,  although 
the  Republicans  were  not  seriously  disturbed  by 
partisan  jealousies.  One  of  the  factions  was  in 
favor  of  carrying  on  the  war,  the  other  was  inclined 
to  favor  a  policy  of  peaceful  compromise.  Multi- 
tudes of  so-called  "War  Democrats,"  however,  were 
now  virtually  acting  with  the  Republicans,  man- 
fully supporting  the  war  policy  of  the  administration 
and  likely  to  vote  for  Lincoln's  re-election.  Speak- 
ing of  the  embarrassed  position  of  the  Democrats, 
just  before  the  convention  of  that  party  in  1864, 
Lincoln  shrewdly  said:  "They  must  nominate  a  war 
candidate  on  a  peace  platform,  or  a  peace  candidate 
on  a  war  platform,  and,  so  far  as  I  am  personally 
concerned,  I  don't  much  care  which  they  do." 

The  result  justified  Lincoln's  sagacity.  General 
George  B.  McClellan  was  nominated  for  the  Presi- 
dency, and  the  platform  declared  that,  "After  four 
years  of  failure  to  restore  the  Union  by  war,  . 
immediate  efforts  should  be  made  for  a  cessation  of 
hostilities,  with  a  view  to  an  ultimate  convention  of 
the  States,  or  other  practicable  means,  to  the  end 
that  peace  may  be  restored  on  the  basis  of  the  Federal 
Union  of  the  States." 

The  two  conventions  had  now  presented  the  great 


396  Abraham  Lincoln 

issue  to  the  people.  The  Baltimore  convention  that 
nominated  Lincoln  had  declared  for  a  vigorous  pro- 
secution of  the  war  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union 
under  the  leadership  of  Lincoln,  who  had  thus  far 
been  at  the  head  of  the  National  Government.  The 
Chicago  convention,  giving  the  sentiments  and  opin- 
ions of  the  Democrats,  had  declared  in  favor  of  an 
armistice,  a  cessation  of  hostilities,  in  order  that 
some  form  of  compromise  might  be  agreed  upon,  and 
had  nominated  McClellan,  popularly  believed  to  be 
a  failure  as  a  general.  Associated  with  him,  as 
candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency,  was  George  H. 
Pendleton,  of  Ohio,  a  Democratic  Representative  in 
Congress,  who  had  consistently  opposed  the  war 
and  every  legislative  act  necessary  for  its  mainte- 
nance. 

Meanwhile,  however,  the  radical  Republicans  had 
held  a  convention  at  Cleveland,  Ohio,  the  call  for 
which  had  declared  that  the  liberties  of  the  people 
were  in  danger,  and  insisted  on  the  ' '  one-term  princi- 
ple "  being  applied  to  the  Presidential  office.  It  was 
to  this  convention  that  Lincoln  applied  the  epithet 
of  the  "Cave  of  Adullam,"  into  which  were  gathered 
all  who  were  in  distress,  or  in  debt,  or  trouble,  or  who 
had  a  grievance.  General  Fremont  was  nominated 
for  the  Presidency,  and  John  Cochrane,  of  New  York, 
was  chosen  candidate  for  the  Vice-Presidency.  In 
due  course  of  time,  this  ticket  and  the  movement 
that  produced  it  crumbled  into  pieces,  having  no 
reasonable  foundation,  and  the  candidates  disap- 
peared beneath  the  surface  of  American  politics  and 
were  heard  of  no  more. 


Political  Complications  397 

The  condition  of  the  Rebel  Confederacy  was  now 
growing  more  and  more  hopeless,  as  the  lines  of  the 
Federal  forces,  under  Grant's  management,  were 
tightened  around  it.  Naval  successes  along  the 
Atlantic  coast,  and  the  pressure  from  every  direction 
on  the  land,  made  themselves  felt  in  the  heart  of  the 
Confederacy.  Significantly,  as  it  would  appear,  the 
talk  in  the  North  about  the  possibility  of  securing 
peace  by  some  sort  of  compromise  grew  more  and 
more  common.  It  seemed  to  be  the  intention  of  the 
Northern  friends  of  the  Rebels  to  make  men  familiar 
with  this  idea.  The  horrors  and  miseries  of  war  were 
dwelt  upon  with  greater  persistence  as  the  hope  of 
finally  crushing  the  rebellion  became  more  reasonable. 

Finally,  two  Rebel  emissaries,  Clement  C.  Clay,  of 
Alabama,  and  Jacob  Thompson,  of  Mississippi 
(formerly  Secretary  of  the  Interior  under  President 
Buchanan),  appeared  on  the  Canadian  border,  not 
far  from  Niagara,  and  put  themselves  in  communica- 
tion with  Horace  Greeley,  the  erratic  but  patriotic 
editor.  This  gentleman,  on  the  yth  of  July,  1864, 
wrote  to  Lincoln,  asking  him  to  grant  a  safe-conduct 
to  these  emissaries,  in  order  that  they  might  come  to 
Washington  and  discuss  terms  of  peace.  Mr.  Greeley 
said: 

"  I  venture  to  remind  you  that  our  bleeding,  bankrupt, 
almost  dying  country  longs  for  peace — shudders  at  the 
prospect  of  fresh  conscriptions,  of  further  wholesale 
devastations,  and  of  new  rivers  of  human  blood;  and  a 
widespread  conviction  that  the  Government  and  its  sup- 
porters are  not  anxious  for  peace,  and  do  not  improve 
proffered  opportunities  to  achieve  it,  is  doing  great  harm 


398  Abraham  Lincoln 

now,  and  is  morally  certain,  unless  removed,  to  do  far 
greater  in  the  approaching  elections." 

In  his  letter  Mr.  Greeley  submitted  a  basis  of 
negotiations,  the  first  two  items  of  which  were  the 
restoration  of  the  Union  and  the  abolition  of  slavery. 

To  this,  Lincoln  replied  in  writing,  as  follows :  "If 
you  can  find  any  person,  anywhere,  professing  to 
have  authority  from  Jefferson  Davis,  in  writing, 
embracing  the  restoration  of  the  Union  and  the 
abandonment  of  slavery,  whatever  else  it  embraces, 
say  to  him  that  he  may  come  to  me  with  you." 
Some  correspondence  thereupon  ensued,  and  Mr. 
Greeley  went  to  Niagara  Falls  to  hold  an  interview 
with  the  Rebel  emissaries.  The  President  sent,  by 
the  hand  of  Colonel  John  Hay,  one  of  his  private 
secretaries,  the  following  missive : 

"  EXECUTIVE  MANSION, 

"WASHINGTON,  July  18,  1864. 
"  To  whom  it  may  concern: 

"  Any  proposition  which  embraces  the  restoration  of 
peace,  the  integrity  of  the  whole  Union,  and  the  abandon- 
ment of  slavery,  and  which  comes  by  and  with  an  au- 
thority that  can  control  the  armies  now  at  war  against  the 
United  States,  will  be  received  and  considered  by  the 
Executive  Government  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be 
met  on  liberal  terms  on  substantial  and  collateral  points ; 
and  the  bearer  or  bearers  thereof  shall  have  safe-conduct 
both  ways.  "ABRAHAM  LINCOLN." 

It  was  soon  apparent  that  the  agents  who  desired 
to  go  to  Washington  had  no  authority  whatever  to 
treat  for  peace.  They  insisted  that  they  were  in  the 


Political  Complications  399 

confidential  employment  of  the  Richmond  govern- 
ment, but  for  what  purpose  they  would  not  declare. 
They  professed  great  disappointment  that  there 
should  have  been  "a  rude  withdrawal  of  a  courteous 
overture  for  negotiation,  at  the  moment  when  it  was 
likely  to  be  accepted,"  and  they  straightway  departed 
to  their  own  place.  The  fact  was  that  Lincoln  was  in 
a  -far  better  position  to  ascertain  the  desires  and 
wishes  of  the  Rebel  leaders  than  any  private  citizen 
could  be,  and  that  from  the  first  he  knew  that  no  sin- 
cere proposition,  such  as  Mr.  Greeley  hoped  might  be 
forthcoming,  would  be  made  by  the  government  at 
Richmond.  That  government  was  unlikely  to  con- 
sent to  any  terms  that  would  involve  its  own  dissolu- 
tion. The  incident,  however,  was  made  much  of  by 
the  so-called  Peace  Democrats,  as  well  as  by  some  of 
the  less  steady  of  the  Republicans.  Experiments 
like  this  at  Niagara  Falls  were  discussed  eagerly  by 
the  opponents  of  Lincoln's  re-election,  and  this  dis- 
cussion influenced  the  managers  of  the  Democratic 
convention  of  that  year  to  declare  for  a  peaceful 
compromise  with  the  Rebels — as  if  that  were  possible 
or  practicable. 

Many  leading  Republican  Congressmen  were  angry 
with  the  President  for  what  they  considered  his  in- 
discreet negotiations  with  Rebel  envoys.  He  was  not 
long  in  finding  this  out,  and  one  day,  after  asking  a 
friendly  visitor  what  people  were  talking  about,  he 
said,  wearily :  "Well,  it  's  hardly  fair  to  say  that  this 
won't  amount  to  anything.  It  will  shut  up  Greeley, 
and  satisfy  the  people  who  are  clamoring  for  peace. 
That  's  something,  anyhow." 


Abraham  Lincoln 

In  October  of  this  year  Maryland,  by  a  popular 
vote,  amended  its  constitution,  and  abolished 
slavery.  This  was  a  gratifying  event  to  all  friends 
of  freedom,  and  Lincoln  was  greatly  elated  thereby. 
To  a  friend  he  said :  "  It  is  worth  many  victories  in 
the  field.  It  cleans  up  a  piece  of  ground."  This 
homely  figure,  suggested  by  his  backwoods  experi- 
ences, is  full  of  meaning  to  those  who  know  the 
almost  endless  difficulties  of  clearing  a  piece  of  the 
wilderness  and  making  it  fit  for  good  seed.  In 
answer  to  a  serenade  from  enthusiastic  Marylanders, 
about  that  time,  Lincoln  said,  referring  to  a  current 
statement  that  he  would  do  his  best  to  prevent  any 
successor  to  himself  from  taking  the  office,  in  case  of 
an  election  that  should  defeat  him: 

"I  am  struggling  to  maintain  the  Government, not  to 
overthrow  it.  I  am  struggling  specially  to  prevent  others 
from  overthrowing  it.  I  therefore  say  that,  if  I  live,  I 
shall  be  President  until  the  4th  of  next  March,  and  that 
whoever  shall  be  constitutionally  elected  in  November 
shall  be  duly  installed  on  the  4th  of  March;  and,  in  the 
interval,  I  shall  do  my  utmost  that  whoever  is  to  hold  the 
helm  for  the  next  voyage  shall  start  with  the  best  possible 
chance  for  saving  the  ship." 

The  losses  of  the  war  required  that  fresh  levies  of 
troops  should  be  made.  Many  timid  people,  anxious 
for  Lincoln's  re-election,  advised  that  a  call  for  men 
and  the  enforcement  of  a  draft  should  be  put  off 
until  after  the  election  had  taken  place.  To  such 
advice  Lincoln  turned  a  deaf  ear.  He  replied  that 
more  men  must  be  had,  if  the  war  was  to  go  on  to  a 


Political  Complications  401 

successful  termination,  and  that  the  consequences 
to  him,  personally,  or  to  the  party  that  had  nomi- 
nated him,  were  so  insignificant,  compared  with  the 
actual  necessities  of  the  country,  that  he  could  not  for 
a  moment  consider  them.  The  call  was  accordingly 
issued  for  five  hundred  thousand  men.  If  the  re- 
quired number  did  not  appear  by  the  5th  of  Septem- 
ber, 1864,  then  a  draft  must  be  ordered.  Lincoln's 
timorous  friends  were  aghast  at  the  prospect. 

The  election  resulted  in  an  overwhelming  majority 
for  Lincoln.  Every  State  that  voted  that  year 
declared  for  Lincoln  and  Lincoln's  policy,  three 
alone  excepted.  These  were  Delaware,  Kentucky, 
and  New  Jersey.  The  two  first -named  were  formerly 
slave-holding  States.  The  total  number  of  votes 
cast  in  all  the  States  was  4,015,902,  of  which  Lincoln 
had  a  clear  majority  of  411,428,  and  212  of  the  233 
electoral  votes,  McClellan  having  twenty-one  electoral 
votes.  Lincoln  very  naturally  felt  gratified  by  this 
mark  of  popular  approval  and  confidence.  He  said 
this  to  the  first  party  that  came  to  congratulate  him 
on  his  re-election — a  company  of  Pennsylvanians  in 
Washington.  And  he  added:  "  If  I  know  my  heart, 
my  gratitude  is  free  from  any  taint  of  personal 
triumph.  I  do  not  impugn  the  motives  of  any  one 
opposed  to  me.  It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  triumph 
over  any  one ;  but  I  give  thanks  to  the  Almighty  for 
this  evidence  of  the  people's  resolution  to  stand  by 
free  government  and  the  rights  of  humanity." 

To  a  personal  friend  he  said:  "  Being  only  mortal, 
after  all,  I  should  have  been  a  little  mortified  if  I  had 
been  beaten  in  this  canvass  before  the  people;  but 

a6. 


402  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  sting  would  have  been  more  than  compensated 
by  the  thought  that  the  people  had  notified  me  that 
my  official  responsibilities  were  soon  to  be  lifted  off 
my  back."  On  the  day  after  the  election,  he  asked 
this  friend  to  send  to  his  old  companion,  Dr.  A.  'G. 
Henry,  formerly  of  Springfield,  but  then  in  Washing- 
ton Territory,  a  despatch,  which  he  would  dictate, 
announcing  the  result  of  the  election.  That  matter 
having  been  disposed  of,  the  two  men  fell  to  talking 
about  the  election  and  the  term  of  office  now  drawing 
to  an  end.  Lincoln  was  in  good  spirits,  and  even 
jovial.  Then,  with  solemn  gravity,  he  said:  "I 
should  be  the  veriest  shallow  and  self-conceited 
blockhead  upon  the  footstool,  if,  in  my  discharge  of 
the  duties  that  are  put  upon  me  in  this  place,  I  should 
hope  to  get  along  without  the  wisdom  that  comes 
from  God  and  not  from  men." 

Lincoln  had  been  tolerably  certain  of  his  renomina- 
tion;  he  was  not  wholly  confident  of  his  re-election. 
On  the  day  of  the  election,  he  said:  "I  am  just 
enough  of  a  politician  to  know  that  there  was  not 
much  doubt  about  the  result  of  the  Baltimore  con- 
vention ;  but  about  this  thing  I  am  not  certain.  I 
wish  I  were  certain." 

This  is  the  cautious  way  in  which  Lincoln  author- 
ized the  announcement  of  his  re-election  to  be  sent  to 
his  old  friend  on  the  Pacific  border,  on  the  day  after 
the  election : 

"WASHINGTON,  November  9,  1864. 
"To  A.  G.  HENRY,  Surveyor-General, 

"  Olympia,  Washington  Territory. 
"With  returns,  and  States  of  which  we  are  confident, 


Political  Complications  403 

the  re-election  of  the  President  is  considered  certain, 
while  it  is  not  certain  that  McClellan  has  carried  any 
State,  though  the  chances  are  that  he  has  carried  New 
Jersey  and  Kentucky." 

When  he  was  reminded  that  Dr.  Henry  would  pre- 
fer that  the  telegram  should  be  verified  by  Lincoln's 
signature,  he  said:  "Oh,  no,  you  sign  it  for  me.  You 
see,  it  is  written  that  way ;  and  though  I  should  like 
to  please  the  good  old  doctor,  I  don't  think  it  would 
look  well  for  a  message  from  me  to  go  travelling 
around  the  country  blowing  my  own  horn.  You 
sign  the  message  and  I  will  send  it."  The  result  of 
the  Delaware  election  was  in  doubt  for  several  days, 
and  when  it  was  definitely  decided,  Lincoln,  even  in 
the  midst  of  his  cares  and  overwhelmed  with  con- 
gratulations and  visits,  recalled  the  fact  that  he  had 
omitted  to  send  word  to  his  old  friend  in  the  far-off 
Pacific  Territory  that  three  States,  instead  of  two, 
had  voted  for  McClellan,  and  a  supplementary  tele- 
gram was  sent.  "Not  because  the  doctor  would  n't 
hear  of  it,"  he  explained,  "but  because  he  might 
think  it  odd  that  I  should  not  correct  my  first  state- 
ment and  clear  it  up." 

With  great  persistence  the  Northern  friends  of 
Southern  Rebels  renewed  the  talk  about  peace  and 
compromise,  during  the  winter  of  1864-5.  The 
atmosphere  of  Washington  was  full  of  rumors,  and, 
as  it  subsequently  transpired,  messengers,  more  or 
less  official,  were  flitting  between  the  capital  and  the 
Rebel  lines.  One  of  these  was  the  venerable  Francis 
P.  Blair,  senior,  a  private  citizen,  with  large  political 
influence  and  experience.  Armed  with  a  safe-con- 


404  Abraham  Lincoln 

duct,  or  pass,  signed  by  Lincoln,  Mr.  Blair  went  to 
Richmond,  saw  Jefferson  Davis,  and  returned  to 
Washington  with  a  letter  addressed  to  himself  by  the 
President  of  the  Rebel  Confederacy,  the  contents  of 
which  he  was  authorized  to  communicate  to  Lincoln. 
In  that  document  Davis  said  that  he  was  willing,  and 
always  had  been,  to  send  commissioners  to  Wash- 
ington "to  enter  into  a  conference  with  a  view  to 
secure  peace  in  the  two  countries."  Of  course,  this 
phrase  "the  two  countries  "  showed  that  Davis  was 
not  prepared  to  discuss  peace  on  any  basis  of  union. 
But  Lincoln,  who  was  weary  of  the  constant  criticism 
of  his  course  by  those  who  insisted  that  he  could  end 
the  war  honorably,  if  he  chose  to,  gave  Mr.  Blair  a 
note  in  which  he  stated  that  he  had  read  the  note 
from  Jefferson  Davis,  and  that  he,  Lincoln,  was  ready, 
as  he  always  had  been,  and  would  continue  to  be,  to 
receive  any  agent  or  influential  person  sent  to  him  by 
the  Rebel  authorities  to  treat  on  terms  of  peace  with  a 
view  of  securing  peace  to  the  people  of  "our  common 
country." 

The  correspondence  thus  opened  resulted  in  the  de- 
spatching of  three  agents  by  Davis  to  meet  the  Presi- 
dent and  confer  with  him  concerning  peace,  on  the 
basis  of  Lincoln's  letter  to  Blair.  These  commission- 
ers, Messrs.  Alexander  H.  Stephens,  R.  M.  T.  Hunter, 
and  John  A.  Campbell,  were  received  at  General 
Grant's  camp  and  were  given  Lincoln's  basis  of 
agreement,  which  was  as  follows: 

''First.  The  restoration  of  the  national  authority 
throughout  all  the  States. 

"  Second.  No  receding  by  the  Executive  of  the  United 


Political  Complications  4°5 

States  on  the  slavery  question  from  the  position  assumed 
thereon  in  the  late  annual  message  to  Congress  and  in 
preceding  documents. 

"  Third.  No  cessation  of  hostilities,  short  of  the  dis- 
banding of  all  forces  hostile  to  the  Government." 

Obviously,  unless  some  great  change  had  come 
over  the  men  who  managed  the  Rebel  government, 
not  one  of  these  indispensable  conditions  could  be 
agreed  to  by  them.  They  were  asked  to  give  up 
their  cherished  scheme  of  a  slave  confederacy;  and 
they  would  not  be  permitted  to  expect  that  the 
military  lines  now  closing  in  upon  them  would  be  in 
the  least  relaxed,  whatever  negotiations  might  be 
pending.  Secretary  Seward  was  charged  by  the 
President  with  the  duty  of  representing  the  national 
authority  in  the  proposed  conference.  The  excite- 
ment in  Washington  was  very  great  when  it  was 
noised  abroad  that  Seward  had  gone  to  Fortress 
Monroe  to  meet  three  Rebel  commissioners.  But 
excitement  was  turned  to  indignation  when  it  was 
learned  that  the  President,  solicitous  as  to  the  com- 
plexion that  the  interview  might  take,  had  followed 
the  Secretary.  The  enemies  of  Lincoln,  especially 
those  of  the  radical  class,  affected  wrath  and  mortifi- 
cation that  he  had  so  far  forgotten  his  dignity  as  to 
meet  in  amity  the  representatives  of  the  enemy  whom 
we  were  fighting  in  the  field.  It  was  also  charged 
that  the  President,  afraid  that  Seward  would  not 
make  sufficiently  large  concessions,  had  gone  to 
Fortress  Monroe  to  make  sure  that  everything  that 
the  Rebel  commissioners  asked  should  be  granted,  if 
possible. 


406  Abraham  Lincoln 

Congress  was  in  session  and  excited  politicians 
went  about  the  Capitol,  eagerly  discussing  the  scanty 
news  relating  to  the  conference  that  had  been  allowed 
to  leak  out.  It  was  a  time  of  general  suspense'  and 
anxiety.  Meanwhile,  the  President  and  the  Secre- 
tary of  State  had  met  the  three  Rebel  commissioners 
on  board  a  steamer  anchored  in  the  roadstead  off 
Fortress  Monroe.  The  conference  lasted  several 
hours,  during  which  the  commissioners  were  ex- 
plicitly informed  that  there  could  be  no  receding 
from  the  position  taken  by  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  on  the  slavery  question;  that  the 
emancipation  proclamation  of  the  President  could 
not  be  recalled  or  amended;  that  Congress  had 
passed  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  abolishing  slavery;  that  this  amend- 
ment would  doubtless  be  ratified  by  the  requisite 
number  of  the  States — three  fourths  of  the  whole; 
and  that  none  of  these  matters  could  be  modified 
in  any  way. 

The  commissioners  urged  in  vain  that  there  should 
be  a  cessation  of  hostilities  while  negotiations  were 
pending,  and  they  manifested  willingness  to  negoti- 
ate on  the  basis  prepared  by  Lincoln.  But  Lincoln 
saw,  as  he  afterwards  declared,  that  the  sole  purpose 
of  the  conference  was  to  secure  an  armistice,  or  truce, 
under  some  pretence  of  debate,  during  which  renewed 
preparations  of  war  should  be  made  by  the  almost 
defeated  Rebels.  Lincoln  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all 
suggestions  of  this  sort;  on  the  contrary,  while 
the  matter  was  yet  pending,  he  wrote  to  General 
Grant,  saying:  "Let  nothing  that  is  transpiring 


Political  Complications  407 

change,  hinder,  or  delay  your  military  movements  or 
plans." 

Lincoln  saw,  from  the  beginning,  that  the  con- 
ference would  be  resultless.  Great  relief  was  felt 
in  Washington  when  the  President  and  the  Secretary 
returned  from  Fortress  Monroe,  and  the  public 
curiosity  to  learn  what  had  happened  was  stimu- 
lated to  a  painful  pitch.  It  soon  leaked  out,  how- 
ever, that  the  conference  had  been  fruitless,  and 
hostile  critics  and  unfriendly  politicians  were  sure 
that  the  President  had  needlessly  abased  himself. 
The  House  of  Representatives  passed  a  resolution 
calling  on  the  President  for  a  report  of  his  doings,  so 
far  as  this  could  be  consistent  with  the  public  welfare. 
The  documents  sent  in  answer  to  this  request  were 
read  to  the  House  in  the  midst  of  a  breathless 
silence. 

The  reading  of  the  papers  submitted  lifted  a  great 
load  from  the  minds  of  loyal  men.  They  saw  that 
the  President  had  not  abated  one  jot  or  tittle  of  his 
official  dignity;  that  his  sagacity  and  shrewdness 
had  been  once  more  triumphantly  vindicated,  and 
that  the  question  of  peaceful  and  honorable  com- 
promise was  now  forever  settled.  The  clamor  of 
the  advocates  of  a  peaceful  adjustment  was  effectu- 
ally silenced.  As  the  reading  of  the  documents 
went  on  in  the  House,  the  clouds  of  doubt  and  sus- 
picion rolled  away;  the  friends  of  the  President 
were  elated,  and,  when  the  reading  was  concluded,  a 
burst  of  uncontrollable  applause  followed,  and  men 
saw  and  honored  the  wisdom  with  which  Lincoln 
had  conducted  the  whole  affair,  from  first  to  last. 


408  Abraham  Lincoln 

He  had  exhausted  all  honorable  means  to  secure 
peace. 

The  Vice  -  President  of  the  Confederacy,  Mr. 
Stephens,  who  was  one  of  the  Rebel  commissioners, 
greatly  admired  the  character  of  Lincoln,  and,  on 
his  return  to  his  own  place,  he  authorized  a  publi- 
cation of  an  informal  report  of  the  doings  at  the 
Hampton  Roads  conference.  It  was  highly  credit- 
able, on  the  whole,  to  Lincoln,  and,  being  repro- 
duced in  Northern  newspapers,  added  to  the  popular 
affection  for  the  President. 

The  reproach  that  Lincoln  had  gone  to  assist 
Seward  at  the  conference  was  removed  when  people 
saw,  in  Lincoln's  instructions  to  Seward,  the  phrase 
"You  are  not  on  any  account  to  conclude  anything 
definitely."  Another  point  that  attracted  general 
attention  and  satisfied  the  people  was  Lincoln's 
steadfast  and  determined  refusal  to  recognize  the 
commissioners  as  official  personages,  or  representa- 
tives of  official  personages.  He  would  not  admit  the 
separate  independence  of  any  States  that  were  a  part 
of  the  American  Republic.  "That,"  he  said,  "would 
be  doing  what  you  have  so  long  in  vain  asked  Europe 
to  do,  and  be  resigning  the  only  thing  the  armies  of 
the  Union  have  been  fighting  for."  In  pressing  the 
point  upon  Lincoln's  mind,  one  of  the  commissioners, 
Mr.  Hunter,  insisted  that  the  recognition  of  Davis's 
power  to  make  treaties  was  the  first  and  indispen- 
sable step  towards  peace;  and  he  cited 'the  corre- 
spondence between  King  Charles  I.,  of  England,  and 
his  Parliament  as  a  good  precedent  justifying  him  in 
taking  that  step.  To  this  Lincoln  replied:  "Upon 


Political  Complications  409 

questions  of  history  I  must  refer  you  to  Mr.  Seward, 
for  he  is  posted  in  such  things,  and  I  don't  pretend  to 
be  bright.  My  only  distinct  recollection  of  the 
matter  is  that  Charles  lost  his  head."  That  settled 
Mr.  Hunter  for  a  while. 

About  the  time  that  Lincoln  was  preparing  his 
message  to  Congress,  which  assembled  in  December 
of  that  year,  Sherman  was  on  his  way  from  Atlanta 
to  the  sea.  The  object  of  his  march  was  unknown  to 
the  general  public,  but  so  implicit  was  the  people's 
confidence  in  the  great  General  that  there  was  no  dis- 
quiet as  to  his  ultimate  success.  Some  supposed 
that  he  would  be  heard  from,  after  a  while,  at  some 
point  on  the  Rebel  line  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and 
others  believed  that  he  would  come  out  of  "the 
bowels  of  the  land"  at  an  Atlantic  port.  On  this 
point  Lincoln  maintained  a  strict  silence.  Sherman 
had  cut  loose  from  all  connections,  and  was  plough- 
ing his  way  through  the  heart  of  the  Confederacy. 
That  was  all  that  was  known  outside  of  a  small 
official  circle.  Lincoln  delayed  the  conclusion  of  his 
annual  message  as  long  as  possible,  hoping  to  be 
able  to  report  in  it  the  successful  termination  of 
Sherman's  march  to  the  sea.  When  the  message 
was  sent  to  Congress,  he  contented  himself  with  a 
vague  reference  to  Sherman's  movements,  from 
which  he  intimated  good  results  would  come. 

While  this  message  was  in  course  of  preparation 
he  had  an  interview  with  two  ladies,  wives  of  Rebel 
officers,  prisoners  of  war  in  one  of  the  Federal  strong- 
holds of  the  North.  Taking  one  of  the  stiff  strips  of 
cardboard  on  which  his  message  was  first  sketched, 


4JO  Abraham  Lincoln 

he  wrote  out  and  gave  to  a  personal  friend  a  report 
of  the  interview,  which  he  called  "the  President's 
last,  shortest,  and  best  speech."  This  he  submitted 
to  the  critical  judgment  of  his  friend,  adding  that  if 
he  thought  it  worth  while  it  might  be  printed  in  the 
newspapers.  It  was  as  follows: 

"  On  Thursday  of  last  week  two  ladies  from  Tennessee 
came  before  the  President,  asking  the  release  of  their  hus- 
bands, held  as  prisoners  of  war  at  Johnson's  Island.  They 
were  put  off  until  Friday,  when  they  came  again,  and 
were  again  put  off  until  Saturday.  At  each  of  the  inter- 
views one  of  the  ladies  urged  that  her  husband  was  a 
religious  man.  On  Saturday,  when  the  President  ordered 
the  release  of  the  prisoners,  he  said  to  this  lady :  '  You  say 
your  husband  is  a  religious  man ;  tell  him  when  you  meet 
him  that  I  say  I  am  not  much  of  a  judge  of  religion,  but 
that,  in  my  opinion,  the  religion  that  sets  men  to  rebel 
and  fight  against  their  government  because,  as  they  think, 
that  government  does  not  sufficiently  help  some  men  to 
eat  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces,  is  not 
the  sort  of  religion  upon  which  people  can  get  to  heaven.' " 

It  will  be  seen  that  one  figure  in  this  little  story, 
that  of  "eating  their  bread  in  the  sweat  of  other  men's 
faces,"  reappears  in  Lincoln's  second  inaugural. 

The  second  inauguration  of  Lincoln  took  place 
March  4,  1865.  The  day  was  dark  and  dismal  in  the 
opening  hours,  but  the  rain  ceased  when  the  proces- 
sion from  the  White  House  to  the  Capitol  began  to 
move;  and,  as  Lincoln  rose  to  deliver  his  inaugural 
address,  the  sun  burst  through  the  clouds,  irradiating 
the  scene  with  splendor  and  light.  It  was  a  hopeful 


Political  Complications  411 

omen,  and,  speaking  of  it  next  day,  Lincoln,  with 
tears  gathering  in  his  eyes,  said :  "It  made  my  heart 
jump!  Let  us  accept  it  as  a  good  sign,  my  dear 
friends."  A  tinge  of  superstition  pervaded  Lin- 
coln's nature,  and  more  than  once  he  spoke  of  the 
sunburst  that  had  illumined  the  sky  as  he  stood  on 
the  steps  of  the  beautiful  Capitol  to  assume  the 
obligations  of  another  term  of  the  Presidency, 
obligations  from  which  death  was  so  soon  to  release 
him.  It  was  a  brilliant  scene,  and  •many  thousands 
were  impressed  with  the  solemnity  as  well  as  the 
joyousness  of  the  occasion,  as  they  called  to  mind 
the  gloom,  doubt,  and  uncertainty  that  had  charac- 
terized the  first  inauguration.  With  a  clear,  reso- 
nant voice,  standing  bareheaded  under  the  March  sky, 
now  softened  and  suffused  with  sunlight,  Lincoln 
pronounced  his  masterly  address,  as  follows: 

"  FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN  :  At  this  season,  appearing  to 
take  the  oath  of  the  Presidential  office,  there  is  less  occa- 
sion for  an  extended  address  than  there  was  at  first. 
Then,  a  statement  somewhat  in  detail  of  a  course  to  be 
pursued  seemed  very  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the 
expiration  of  four  years,  during  which  public  declarations 
have  been  constantly  called  forth  on  every  point  and 
phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs  the  attention 
and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation,  little  that  is  new 
could  be  presented.  The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon 
which  all  else  chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the 
public  as  to  myself,  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably  satis- 
factory and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the 
future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 

"  On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years  ago, 


412  Abraham  Lincoln 

all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  impending  civil 
war.  All  dreaded  it,  all  sought  to  avoid  it.  While  the 
inaugural  address  was  being  delivered  from  this  place, 
devoted  altogether  to  saving  the  Union  without  war, 
insurgent  agents  were  in  the  city,  seeking  to  destroy  it 
with  war — seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union,  and  divide  the 
effects  by  negotiation.  Both  parties  deprecated  war,  but 
one  of  them  would  make  war  rather  than  let  the  nation 
survive,  and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than  let 
it  perish;  and  the  war  came.  One  eighth  of  the  whole 
population  were  colored  slaves,  not  distributed  generally 
over  the  Union,  but  localized  in  the  southern  part  of  it. 
These  slaves  constituted  a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest. 
All  knew  that  this  interest  was  somehow  the  cause  of  the 
war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend  this  interest 
was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents  would  rend  the 
Union  by  war,  while  the  Government  claimed  no  right  to 
do  more  than  to  restrict  the  territorial  enlargement  of  it. 

"  Neither  party  expected  for  the  war  the  magnitude  or 
the  duration  which  it  has  already  attained.  Neither 
anticipated  that  the  cause  of  the  conflict  might  cease  with 
or  even  before  the  conflict  itself  should  cease.  Each 
looked  for  an  easier  triumph,  and  a  result  less  fundamental 
and  astounding. 

"  Both  read  the  same  Bible,  and  pray  to  the  same  God, 
and  each  invokes  his  aid  against  the  other.  It  may  seem 
strange  that  any  men  should  dare  to  ask  a  just  God's 
assistance  in  wringing  their  bread  from  the  sweat  of  other 
men's  faces.  But  let  us  judge  not,  that  we  be  not  judged. 
The  prayer  of  both  could  not  be  answered.  That  of 
neither  has  been  answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  His 
own  purposes.  '  Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offences ; 
for  it  must  needs  be  that  offences  come,  but  woe  to  that 
man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh ! '  If  we  shall  suppose 


Political  Complications  413 

that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these  offences  which  in 
the  providence  of  God  must  needs  come,  but  which,  hav- 
ing continued  through  His  appointed  time,  He  now  wills  to 
remove,  and  that  He  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this 
terrible  war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offence 
came,  shall  we  discern  there  any  departure  from  those 
divine  attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God 
always  ascribe  to  Him?  Fondly  do  we  hope, fervently  do 
we  pray,  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily 
pass  away.  Yet  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the 
wealth  piled  by  the  bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every 
drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  by  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago, 
so  still  it  must  be  said,  that '  the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are 
true  and  righteous  altogether.' 

"With  malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with 
firmness  in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us 
finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wounds, 
to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for 
his  widow  and  his  orphans,  to  do  all  which  may  achieve 
and  cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  ourselves 
and  with  all  nations." 

It  is  impossible  to  describe  the  effect  of  the  reading 
of  this  paper  upon  those  who  heard  it,  and  those  who 
subsequently  read  it.  Its  lofty  tone  and  grand 
majesty  reminded  one  of  the  Hebraic  prophecies; 
and  its  dispassionate  and  almost  merciless  dissection 
of  the  issues  of  the  struggle  for  the  preservation  of 
the  Union,  and  the  dying  contortions  of  the  monster 
slavery,  were  received  with  a  feeling  of  awe.  The 
impression  made  by  the  inaugural  was  profound.  It 
was  conclusive  of  the  genius  and  the  intellectual 


414  Abraham  Lincoln 

greatness  of  its  author.  From  that  time  forth,  the 
world  gave  among  its  orators  and  statesmen  a  high 
place  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  The  noblest  and  richest 
type  of  American  manhood  had  at  last  reached  his 
culminating  period. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

THE    FAMILY    IN    THE    WHITE    HOUSE. 

Plain  Living  and  Simple  Manners — Lincoln's  Kindness  and  His 
Righteous  Wrath — The  Sons  of  Lincoln — The  Boy  of  the  White 
House — Threats  of  Assassination — The  President's  Dealings  with 
Office-Seekers — Sundry  Anecdotes. 

OIMPLICITY  was  the  main  characteristic  of  the 
^  life  of  the  Lincoln  family  in  the  White  House. 
Lincoln's  nature,  as  we  have  seen,  was  averse  to  dis- 
play of  any  sort  that  made  him  or  his  prominent  in 
the  eyes  of  men.  No  man  was  ever  more  free  from 
affectation,  and  the  distaste  that  he  felt,  for  form, 
ceremony,  and  personal  parade  was  genuine.  Yet 
he  was  not  without  a  certain  dignity  of  bearing  and 
character  that  commanded  respect.  At  times,  too, 
he  rebuked  those  who  presumed  too  far  on  his 
habitual  good-nature  and  affable  kindness.  On  one 
occasion  a  deputation  of  citizens  concerned  in  the 
distribution  of  offices  in  a  distant  State  waited  upon 
him,  with  a  remonstrance  against  certain  pending 
appointments.  Their  objections  were  committed 
to  writing,  and  the  spokesman  of  the  party  read  it  to 
the  President.  It  chanced  that  the  paper  contained 
an  implied  reflection  on  his  old  friend,  Senator  Baker, 
then  a  guest  in  the  White  House.  Lincoln  listened 
silently  to  the  reading  of  the  document,  a  faint  flush 


4i 6  Abraham  Lincoln 

mounting  his  sallow  cheeks.  Then  he  said,  taking 
the  paper:  "Is  this  paper  mine,  to  do  with  as  I 
please?"  The  spokesman  replied:  "Certainly,  Mr. 
President."  The  President  calmly  laid  the  docu- 
ment on  the  blazing  coals  in  the  fireplace  and  said: 
' '  Good-morning,  gentlemen. ' ' 

Afterwards,  speaking  of  the  anger  that  the  delega- 
tion were  said  to  have  manifested  when  they  went 
out  of  the  audience-chamber,  Lincoln  said : 

"  The  paper  was  an  unjust  attack  upon  my  dearest  per- 
sonal friend,  Ned  Baker,  who  was  at  that  time  a  member 
of  my  family.  The  delegation  did  not  know  what  they 
were  talking  about  when  they  made  him  responsible, 
almost  abusively,  for  what  I  had  done,  or  proposed  to  do. 
They  told  me  that  that  was  my  paper,  to  do  with  as  I 
liked.  I  could  not  trust  myself  to  reply  in  words :  I  was 
so  angry.  That  was  the  whole  case." 

On  another  occasion,  a  still  more  audacious 
petitioner,  introduced  by  a  strong  letter  from  a 
Senator  of  the  United  States,  so  far  forgot  himself  as 
to  break  out  with  profane  language  in  the  presence  of 
Lincoln.  The  President,  when  the  offence  was 
repeated  a  second  time,  rose  with  great  dignity, 
opened  the  door  of  the  audience-chamber  and  said: 
' '  I  thought  that  Senator had  sent  me  a  gentle- 
man. I  find  I  am  mistaken.  There  is  the  door,  sir. 
Good-evening." 

While  he  was  in  the  White  House,  as  President  of 
the  United  States,  Lincoln  had  few  amusements. 
The  times,  so  full  of  trouble,  and  lamentation  for  the 
dead  in  the  war,  were  not  favorable  to  the  giving  of 


The  Family  in  the  White  House       4*7 

social  or  formal  entertainments.  There  were  occa- 
sional dinner  parties,  and  early  in  the  first  Presi- 
dential term  there  was  one  large  evening  party,  or 
ball ;  but  that  was  all.  He  went  often  to  the  theatre, 
usually  accompanied  only  by  a  friend,  and  taking 
pains  to  enter  the  place  unrecognized.  He  sought 
the  theatre  only  as  a  means  of  amusing  a  spare  hour, 
diverting  his  mind  from  the  cares  and  sorrows  that 
weighed  him  down.  Naturally  fond  of  music,  he  was 
glad,  when  he  had  an  opportunity,  to  listen  to  the 
singing  or  the  playing  of  some  visitor  who  might  call 
on  the  family  f  .n  evening.  And  he  seemed  to  find 
his  greatest  pleasure  in  simple  and  pathetic  ballad 
music.  Generally,  however,  he  was  kept  too  bus/ 
in  his  cabinet,  during  the  evening,  to  go  down  to  tho 
parlor,  wrnre  Mrs.  Lincoln  received  her  friends.  It 
was  her  custom,  when  those  called  whom  she  thought 
the  President  would  lik^  to  see,  to  send  him  word ; 
and  his  excuses,  if  he  did  not  come,  were  readily 
accepted. 

He  cared  little  for  the  pleasures  of  the  table,  and  he 
seldom  partook  of  any  but  the  plainest  and  simplest 
food,  even 'when  a  more  elaborate  repast  than  usual 
was  spread  upon  the  board.  Wine  was  set  on  the 
table  when  those  who  used  it  were  guests;  but 
Lincoln  only  maintained  the  form  of  touching  it. 
When  engrossed  with  the  cares  of  his  office,  which 
was  almost  habitually,  he  ate  irregularly,  and  the 
family  were  accustomed  to  see  him  come  to  the  table 
or  stay  away,  as  it  suited  his  convenience.  Even 
when  his  anxious  wife  had  sent  to  his  cabinet,  where 

he  was  engaged,  a  tray  of  food,  he  was  often  too  busy 
27. 


418  Abraham  Lincoln 

or  too  abstracted  to  touch  it.  And  when  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln was  away  from  home,  as  sometimes  happened, 
he  neglected  his  meals  altogether,  or,  as  he  expressed 
it,  "browsed  around,"  eating  when  his  hunger 
moved,  when  and  how  he  could  most  conveniently. 
His  youngest  son,  "Tad,"  as  he  was  called,  could 
bring  him  out  of  his  working  or  meditative  moods 
more  readily  than  any  other  of  the  family.  When 
the  Lincolns  entered  the  White  House,  in  1861,  there 
were  three  sons  and  no  other  children.  The  eldest 
was  Robert,  eighteen  years  old;  Willie,  a  little  more 
than  ten;  and  Thomas,  or  Tad,  then  nearly  eight 
years  old.  This  little  fellow  celebrated  his  eleventh 
birthday  in  the  White  House,  April  4,  1863.  Robert 
was  a  student  in  Phillips  Academy,  Exeter,  N.  H., 
when  his  father  became  President,  and  he  entered 
Harvard  University  soon  after  that  time.  He  was 
graduated  subsequently,  studied  law,  and  was  ap- 
pointed Secretary  of  War,  several  years  after  his 
father's  death,  serving  under  President  Garfield  and 
President  Arthur. 

Willie,  the  second  son,  died  in  February,  1862, 
during  the  darkest  and  most  gloomy  time  of  the  long 
and  oppressive  era  of  the  war.  Possibly  this 
calamity  made  Lincoln  less  strict  with  his  youngest 
boy  than  he  should  have  been.  He  found  it  well- 
nigh  impossible  to  deny  Tad  anything.  But  the 
little  fellow,  always  a  hearty,  happy,  and  lovable 
boy,  did  not  abuse  his  privileges.  He  roamed  the 
White  House  at  will,  a  tricksy  and  restless  spirit,  as 
well  known  to  habitual  visitors  as  the  President  him- 
self. Innumerable  stories  might  be  told  of  the 


The  Family  in  the  White  House       419 

child's  native  wit,  his  courage,  his  adventurousness, 
and  his  passionate  devotion  to  his  father.  He 
invaded  Cabinet  councils  with  his  boyish  griefs  or 
tales  of  adventure,  climbed  in  his  father's  lap  when 
the  President  was  engaged  with  affairs  of  state,  and 
doubtless  diverted  and  soothed  the  troubled  mind  of 
the  President,  who  loved  his  boy  with  a  certain 
tenderness  that  was  inexpressible.  It  was  Tad,  the 
mercurial  and  irrepressible  boy  of  the  White  House, 
on  friendly  terms  with  the  great  and  the  lowly,  who 
gave  to  the  executive  mansion  almost  the  only  joy- 
ous note  that  echoed  through  its  corridors  and 
stately  drawing-rooms  in  those  troublous  times. 
The  boy  survived  his  father,  dying  at  the  age  of 
eighteen  years,  after  the  family  had  left  Washington. 
The  President  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  usually  addressed 
each  other  in  the  old-fashioned  manner  as  "Father" 
and  "Mother,"  and  it  was  very  seldom  that  Mrs. 
Lincoln  spoke  of  her  husband  as  "the  President." 
And  Lincoln,  on  his  part,  never,  if  he  could  avoid  it, 
spoke  of  himself  as  President.  If  he  had  occasion 
to  refer  to  his  high  office,  he  spoke  of  it  as  "this 
place."  When  the  occasion  required,  however,  his 
native  dignity  asserted  itself,  and  a  certain  simple 
and  yet  influential  grandeur  was  manifested  in  his 
deportment  and  demeanor.  On°  so«.n  forgot  in  his 
immediate  presence  the  native  ungainliness  of  his 
figure,  and  felt  that  he  was  in  the  personal  atmosphere 
of  one  of  the  world's  great  men.  Although  Lincoln 
was  genial  and  free  in  his  manners,  even  with 
strangers,  there  was  something  in  his  bearing  that 
forbade  familiarity.  Much  has  been  said  about  his 


42o  Abraham  Lincoln 

disregard  for  dress  and  personal  appearance,  but 
much  of  this  is  erroneous.  He  was  neat  in  his  per- 
son, scrupulously  so,  and  his  garb  was  that  of  a  gentle- 
man always.  If,  in  the  seclusion  of  his  home,  he  was 
sometimes  called  out  late  at  night,  to  hear  an  im- 
portant message  or  decide  instantly  an  affair  of  great 
moment,  and  he  did  not  wait  to  array  himself /some- 
thing was  excused  to  his  preoccupation  and  anxiety. 

Mrs.  Lincoln  went  to  Washington  when  that  city 
was  a  hotbed  of  secession  and  treason.  Many  of  the 
women  of  the  time  were  exceedingly  bitter  against 
the  new-comers,  and  they  put  in  circulation  a  num- 
ber of  injurious  and  absurd  stories  concerning  the 
manners  and  habits  of  the  members  of  the  Lincoln 
family.  When  the  President  became  better  known, 
men  marvelled  at  the  wantonness  and  the  ground- 
lessness of  the  tales  that  related  to  him.  But  Mrs. 
Lincoln  could  not  enjoy  that  opportunity  of  vindi- 
cating, by  her  amiable  and  dignified  life,  her  own 
much-misrepresented  character.  To  this  day,  doubt- 
less, the  slanders  of  the  gossips  survive  in  some  degree 
those  evil  times;  and  there  may  be  people  who 
really  believe  that  Mrs.  Lincoln  did  not  fully  sympa- 
thize with  her  husband  in  his  sorrows  and  trials,  but 
secretly  favored  the  rebellion  which,  if  successful, 
would  have  expelled  Lincoln  from  Washington,  if  it 
had  spared  his  life.  The  relations  of  Lincoln  and  his 
wife  were  a  model  for  the  married  people  of  the 
republic  of  which  they  were  then  the  foremost  pair. 

In  the  summer  the  family  lived  in  a  stone  cottage 
on  the  reservation  belonging  to  the  Government,  in 
the  suburbs  of  Washington,  known  as  the  Soldiers' 


The  Family  in  the  White  House       421 

Home.  A  few  servants  were  then  kept  at  the  White 
House,  and  in  case  of  extraordinary  business  being 
on  hand  the  President  tarried  there  all  night.  But 
usually  he  was  driven  out  at  the  close  of  the  day's 
work,  and  the  evenings  at  the  Soldiers'  Home 
cottage  were  often  very  delightful.  The  distance 
from  the  city  kept  away  importunate  office-seekers 
and  other  petitioners,  and  familiar  friends  would  call 
and  help  to  pass  the  evening  in  social  chat.  One  or 
two  would  sometimes  be  invited  to  spend  the  night, 
and  the  family  circle  was  then  more  like  that  of  a 
private  household  than  at  any  other  time  during  the 
Presidential  term. 

The  drives  to  and  from  the  Soldiers'  Home  and  the 
White  House  were  often  undertaken  in  the  darkness 
of  late  hours,  and  friends  of  the  President,  alarmed 
by  rumors  of  attempted  attacks  upon  the  person  of 
the  chief,  insisted  that  he  should  have  a  small  body- 
guard of  cavalry  to  accompany  him  to  and  fro.  The 
proposition  was  most  unpalatable  to  Lincoln,  and  he 
resisted  it  as  long  as  he  could.  When  he  finally  con- 
sented, the  little  show  of  the  cavalry  escort  was 
almost  distressful  to  him,  and  he  repeatedly  ex- 
pressed his  disgust  at  the  "jingling  and  the  jangling" 
of  the  troops.  A  guard  was  also  mounted  at  the  main 
entrance  of  the  White  House ;  and  this  too  annoyed 
him  not  a  little,  especially  as  it  was  needful,  in  the 
observance  of  military  discipline,  that  they  should 
salute  him  when  he  passed  in  and  out.  On  one 
occasion  Tad,  having  been  sportively  commissioned 
a  lieutenant  in  the  United  States  army  by  Secretary 
Stanton,  procured  several  muskets  and  drilled  the 


422  Abraham  Lincoln 

men-servants  of  the  house  in  the  manual  of  arms 
without  attracting  the  attention  of  his  father.  And 
one  night,  to  their  consternation,  he  put  them  on 
duty  and  relieved  the  regular  sentries,  who,  seeing 
the  lad  in  full  uniform,  or  perhaps  appreciating  the 
joke,  gladly  went  to  their  quarters.  Robert  Lincoln, 
hearing  of  this  extraordinary  performance,  indig- 
nantly went  to  his  father  to  remonstrate  against  the 
servants  being  compelled  to  do  special  duty  when 
their  day's  work  was  done.  Tad  insisted  on  his 
rights  as  an  officer.  The  President  laughed  and  de- 
clined to  interfere.  But  when  the  lad  had  lost  his 
little  authority  in  his  boyish  sleep,  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  of  the  Army  and  Navy  of  the  United  States 
went  down  and  personally  discharged  the  sentries  his 
son  had  put  on  post. 

No  warning  of  suspected  attempts  upon  his  life 
seemed  to  move  Lincoln.  In  deference  to  his  wife's 
fears  he  did  sometimes  carry  a  stout  cane,  when  in 
the  darkness  and  loneliness  of  the  night  he  took  his 
solitary  way  through  the  tree-studded  grounds  of  the 
White  House, to  confer  with  the  late  watchers  in  the 
War  Department,  or  at  General  Halleck's  headquar- 
ters. But  he  laughed  grimly  at  this  slight  weapon  of 
defence.  Once  he  said,  somewhat  seriously: 

"  I  long  ago  made  up  my  mind  that  if  anybody  wants  to 
kill  me  he  will  do  it.  If  I  wore  a  shirt  of  mail  and  kept 
myself  surrounded  by  a  body-guard,  it  would  be  all  the 
same.  There  are  a  thousand  ways  of  getting  at  a  man  if  it 
is  desirable  that  he  should  be  killed.  Besides,  in  this  case, 
it  seems  to  me,  the  man  who  would  come  after  me  would 
be  just  as  objectionable  to  my  enemies — if  I  have  any." 


The  Family  in  the  White  House       423 

If  Mr.  Lincoln  cherished  any  personal  resentments, 
they  were  never  apparent  in  his  official  conduct.  A 
Washington  office-holder,  who  had  zealously  advo- 
cated the  claims  of  Mr.  Chase  to  succeed  Mr.  Lincoln, 
was  subsequently  an  applicant  for  a  promotion  in 
office.  He  got  what  he  asked  for,  and  the  President, 
when  remonstrated  with  by  a  friend  who  was  not  so 
magnanimous,  said: 

"Well,  I  suppose  Judge  E.,  having  been  disappointed 
before,  did  behave  pretty  ugly,  but  that  would  n't  make 
him  any  less  fit  for  this  place;  and  I  have  Scriptural 
authority  for  appointing  him.  You  remember  that  when 
the  Lord  was  on  Mount  Sinai  getting  out  a  commission  for 
Aaron,  that  same  Aaron  was  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain 
making  a  false  god  for  the  people  to  worship.  Yet  Aaron 
got  his  commission,  you  know." 

Alluding  to  the  pressure  for  office,  applied  to  him  so 
steadily  that  he  was  almost  compelled  to  neglect 
measures  for  the  maintenance  of  the  Federal  Union, 
he  said:  "If  this  keeps  on,  I  shall  be  in  the  position 
of  a  man  who  is  so  busy  renting  rooms  at  one  end  of 
his  house  that  he  has  no  time  to  put  out  the  fire  that 
is  consuming  it  at  the  other  end." 

As  Lincoln  was  no  stickler  for  his  own  dignities 
and  honors,  he  was  not  offended  when  some  of  the 
great  civil  or  military  dignitaries  of  his  time  were 
shocked  by  want  of  due  respect  to  their  official 
station.  When  he  was  leaving  Hooker's  head- 
quarters, after  a  visit,  a  short  time  before  the  battle 
of  Chancellorsville,  the  troops  cheered  him  right 
lustily,  being  drawn  up  in  line;  and  a  soldier  in  the 


424  Abraham  Lincoln 

rank  nearest  the  President  added,  with  a  volunteer 
soldier's  freedom  of  manner,  "And  send  along  the 
greenbacks."  Lincoln  was  greatly  amused  by  the 
incident,  and,  explaining  to  Tad  that  the  men  had  not 
been  paid,  the  lad  said,  with  great  innocence :  "Why 
don't  Governor  Chase  print  some  more  greenbacks?" 

Later  in  the  war,  Secretary  Stanton  visited  the 
Federal  lines  at  Port  Royal,  South  Carolina,  and  was 
taken  up  Broad  River  on  board  a  small  steamer. 
Reaching  the  pickets,  one  of  them  roared  from  the 
bank:  "Who  have  you  got  aboard  that  tug?"  An 
officer  replied,  with  freezing  dignity:  "Major- 
General  Foster  and  the  Secretary  of  War."  The 
picket  shouted  back,  without  a  sign  of  abashment: 
"We  've  got  major-generals  enough  up  here.  Why 
don't  you  bring  up  some  hard-tack?"  This  was 
reported  to  Lincoln,  who  repeated  the  story  with 
great  delight  for  a  long  time  thereafter. 

On  one  occasion,  while  steaming  down  the  Poto- 
mac, bound  for  Fortress  Monroe,  the  President 
called  attention  to  a  vessel  which  he  called  a  ship. 
Being  told  that  it  was  a  three-masted  schooner,  he 
laughed  at  his  mistake  and  said:  "I  shall  certainly 
know  a  three-masted  schooner  from  a  ship  the  next 
time  I  ever  see  either.  When  I  came  into  this  place 
I  was  deplorably  ignorant  of  all  marine  matters, 
being  only  a  prairie  lawyer.  But  I  do  think  that  I 
knew  the  difference  between  the  bow  of  a  ship  and 
her  stern,  and  I  don't  believe  Secretary  Welles  did." 

It  was,  perhaps,  a  weakness  in  Lincoln  that  he 
seemed  to  think  that  he  should  attend  to  many  of 
the  small  details  of  his  office  that  might  have  been 


The  Family  in  the  White  House       425 

turned  over  to  the  members  of  his  Cabinet,  to  be  by 
them  referred  to  their  subordinates.  If  he  sent  ap- 
plicants to  the  departments,  it  was  not  until  he  had 
made  some  examination  of  the  case  presented. 
Once,  being  puzzled  by  the  illegible  writing  of  an 
application  for  an  office,  he  indorsed  it:  "Brigadier- 
general,  I  guess."  An  officer  in  the  army,  related 
to  a  very  distinguished  general,  reluctant  to  ask 
the  President  for  promotion,  implored  the  aid  of 
one  of  the  President's  friends.  This  gentleman, 
presenting  the  case  to  Lincoln,  said  that  the  officer 
in  question  had  remarked  that  his  own  relationship 

to  General was  a  disadvantage,  for  it  kept 

him  down.  Lincoln  jumped  from  his  chair,  and, 
shrieking  with  laughter,  said:  "Keeps  him  down? 
Keeps  him  down?  That's  all  that  keeps  him  up! " 

An  old  acquaintance  of  the  President,  whom  he 
had  not  seen  for  many  years,  visited  Washington. 
Lincoln  desired  to  give  him  a  place.  Thus  encour- 
aged, the  visitor,  who  was  an  honest  man,  but  wholly 
inexperienced  in  public  affairs  or  in  business,  asked 
for  a  high  office.  The  President  was  aghast,  and 
said:  "Good  gracious!  why  didn't  he  ask  to  be 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  have  done  with  it?" 
Afterward  he  said:  "Well,  now,  I  never  thought  M. 
had  anything  more  than  average  ability,  when  we 
were  young  men  together — and  he  wants  to  be  super- 
intendent of  the  mint!"  He  paused,  and  added, 
with  a  queer  smile :  "But,  then,  I  suppose  he  thought 
the  same  thing  about  me,  and — here  I  am!" 

Numberless  anecdotes  are  told  of  Lincoln's  kind- 
ness of  heart.  As  to  appeals  to  him  in  behalf  of  men 


426  Abraham  Lincoln 

condemned  to  death  for  violations  of  rules  and  regu- 
lations of  military  discipline,  or  for  the  discharge  of 
minors  or  persons  of  infirm  mind,  held  to  military  ser- 
vice, it  may  be  said  in  general  terms  that  these  were 
never  made  in  vain.  He  was  readily  accessible  to 
petitioners  of  every  grade  and  rank  in  life.  It  was 
his  habit  to  receive  first  those  who  came  by  special 
appointment,  or  were  privileged  by  official  station, 
and  then  to  have  the  doors  of  his  cabinet  opened  and 
all  who  were  in  waiting  brought  in,  each  in  his  order, 
to  a  general  audience.  This  was  very  exhausting  to 
the  President,  especially  if  he  had,  as  he  often  had,  a 
weight  of  apprehension  on  his  mind  by  reason  of  some 
military  crisic  or  similar  complication. 

Lincoln  was  accustomed  to  fits  of  abstraction  from 
which  no  ordinary  call  could  rouse  him.  At  such 
times  his  eyes  had  a  far-away  look,  as  if  his  soul  were 
wandering  in  space  and  must  be  deaf  to  the  voice  of 
any  caller.  Once,  at  the  close  of  an  unusually  ex- 
hausting day,  an  intimate  friend  found  Lincoln  sunk 
in  a  state  of  collapse,  as  it  were,  with  the  old  far- 
away look  in  his  eyes.  Being  brought  back  by 
repeated  calls  of  his  name,  the  President  laughed 
cheerily,  and  explained  that  he  had  had  a  hard  day 
and  his  wits  "had  gone  wool-gathering." 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 

THE    PRESIDENT   AND   HIS    CABINET. 

Popular  Expectation  that  Secretary  Seward  would  be  the  Leading 
Spirit  of  the  New  Administration — Mr.  Lincoln's  Firmness  and 
Kindness  with  the  Secretary  of  State — Mr.  Stanton's  Criticisms 
of  Lincoln — Why  Secretary  Cameron  lef  •:  the  Cabinet — The  Exit 
of  Postmaster-General  Blair — Secretary  Chase's  Restiveness — His 
Subsequent  Appointment  as  Chief-Justice — The  President  De- 
ferred to  the  Ministers. 

PRESIDENT  LINCOLN'S  relations  with  his 

Cabinet  ministers  were  always  friendly  and 
cordial.  With  each  member  he  was  habitually  frank 
and  sincere  in  his  treatment  of  all  questions  that 
affected  the  personal  relations  of  each.  It  was  not 
the  habit  of  any  of  the  Cabinet  ministers,  excepting 
Secretary  Seward,  to  visit  the  White  House  on  purely 
social  and  informal  errands.  Mr.  Seward  lived  not 
far  from  the  Executive  Mansion,  and,  more  than  any 
other  of  his  associates,  he  was  accustomed  to  make 
casual  calls  upon  the  President  and  his  family.  It 
may  be  remembered,  to  the  credit  of  both  of  these 
eminent  men,  that  it  was  Mr.  Seward,  rather  than  any 
other  member  of  the  Cabinet,  who  might  have  had 
occasion  to  feel  restive  over  his  own  position  in  the 
councils  of  the  President.  Mr.  Seward  was  the  most 
prominent  and  conspicuous  rival  of  Mr.  Lincoln  for 
the  Presidential  nomination  in  1860.  He  may  have 

427 


428  Abraham  Lincoln 

felt  that  his  failure  to  secure  that  honor  was  due  to  an 
accident  rather  than  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  fitness  for  the 
place  into  which  he  was  installed.  We  cannot  say 
what  was  the  estimate  which  Lincoln  put  on  the 
qualifications  of  Seward  for  the  Presidential  office; 
but  we  may  be  sure  that  Seward  once  thought  him- 
self the  greater  man  of  the  two.  Undoubtedly  he 
was  not  alone  in  holding  that  opinion  Many 
patriotic  and  intelligent  men  thought  Seward  was 
not  only  the  greatest  man  in  the  new  administration, 
but  they  expected  and  believed  that  he  would  be  the 
author  and  director  of  its  policy.  It  is  possible  that 
this  was  also  Mr.  Seward's  expectation. 

Very  early  in  the  history  of  the  Lincoln  Adminis- 
tration this  question  was  to  be  settled  once  for  all. 
When  Mr.  Lincoln  had  written  his  inaugural  address 
to  be  delivered  March  4,  1861,  he  submitted  it  to  the 
criticism  of  several  persons  who  were  near  to  him, 
among  others,  Mr.  Seward.  Returning  the  document 
to  the  President-elect,  Mr.  Seward  suggested  numer- 
ous changes  and  emendations,  some  of  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  adopted  and  others  he  rejected.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  joint  labors  of  the  two  resulted  in  the 
production  of  a  State  paper  of  great  power  and 
dignity;  that  Mr.  Seward's  share  in  this  work  was, 
after  all,  inconsiderable ;  but  the  fact  that  the  Presi- 
dent-elect, then  regarded  as  a  raw  and  unskilled 
statesman,  from  whom  no  greatness  could  be  ex- 
pected, was  willing  to  accept  corrections  and  sugges- 
tions from  the  future  Secretary  of  State  was  enough 
to  give  Mr.  Seward  encouragement  to  magnify  his 
office  as  "premier"  of  the  new  administration. 


The  President  and  His  Cabinet        429 

The  next  step  in  the  direction  of  addition  to  the 
dignity  and  importance  of  his  office  was  taken  by  Mr. 
Seward  at  the  end  of  the  first  month  of  the  new 
administration,  April  i,  1861.  Although  State  after 
State  had  passed  ordinances  of  secession  from  the 
Union,  public  opinion  all  over  the  North  was  in  a 
greatly  confused  condition.  Nobody  knew  what 
would  be  the  result  of  these  so-called  secessions, 
whether  there  would  be  war,  a  peaceful  breaking  up 
of  the  Federal  Union,  or  a  series  of  concessions  that 
would  pacify  the  Southern  seceders  and  restore 
things  on  a  new  basis  of  union.  Even  patriotic  men 
were  in  some  instances  ready  to  make  compromises 
for  the  sake  of  peace,  and  others  equally  patriotic 
were  willing  that  the  new  administration  should 
secure  "peace  at  any  price." 

Perhaps  as  good  an  illustration  as  any  other  of  the 
too  prevailing  popular  opinion  about  Lincoln's 
abilities  may  be  found  in  the  letters  of  Edwin  M. 
Stanton,  written  about  this  time.  Mr.  Stanton  was  a 
loyal  and  upright  man,  devoted  to  the  cause  of  the 
Union;  and  afterwards,  as  Secretary  of  War  under 
President  Lincoln,  he  achieved  fame  for  his  hercu- 
lean labors  in  defence  of  that  cause.  Yet,  writing  in 
June,  1 86 1,  he  gave  currency  to  the  belief  that  the 
Rebels  would  be  in  possession  of  Washington  "within 
thirty  days,"  and  in  consequence  of  that  "painful 
imbecility  of  Lincoln  "  to  which  he  referred  with 
grim  sarcasm  in  a  letter  written  about  that  time. 
While  men  were  wondering  what  the  new  adminis- 
tration would  do,  and  if  it  would  do  anything  but 
parcel  out  the  offices,  Secretary  Seward  wrote  for 


43°  Abraham  Lincoln 

President  Lincoln's  consideration  a  memorandum  in 
which  the  general  depression  and  uncertainty  were 
dwelt  upon,  and  a  line  of  policy  was  marked  out. 
Briefly,  this  extraordinary  paper  proposed  that  the 
topic  of  slavery  extension  as  a  political  question  be 
laid  aside,  and  "Union  or  Disunion? "  be  substituted 
therefor;  and,  having  set  this  forth  as  the  local 
policy,  the  Secretary  proceeded  to  suggest  that  ex- 
planations for  alleged  unfriendly  acts  be  demanded 
from  the  governments  of  Spain,  France,  Great 
Britain,  and  Russia,  that  agents  be  sent  to  the  colo- 
nial dependencies  of  some  of  these  to  stir  up  strife, 
and  that,  in  default  of  satisfactory  replies  from  Spain 
and  France,  war  be  declared  against  them.  In  other 
words,  the  newly  installed  President  was  asked  to 
turn  his  back  on  the  party  that  had  elected  him,  and 
to  divert  the  attention  of  the  Southern  rebels  from 
their  rebellion  by  an  invitation  to  join  in  a  series  of 
foreign  wars. 

This  scheme  of  the  Secretary  of  State  had  in  it  a 
certain  suggestion  of  arrogance,  because  it  contained 
a  very  direct  hint  that  he  expected  to  be  the  officer 
charged  with  the  duty  of  carrying  out  the  policy 
which  he  had  thus  boldly  outlined.  He  said  that  if 
the  President  did  not  choose  to  manage  this  under- 
taking, he  should  "devolve  it  on  some  member  of  his 
Cabinet . "  He  added :  ' '  Once  adopted,  all  debates  on 
it  must  end,  and  all  agree  and  abide.  It  is  not  my 
especial  province.  But  I  neither  seek  to  evade  nor 
assume  responsibility."  The  President's  reply  to 
this  amazing  communication  was  simple,  direct,  and 
in  admirable  temper.  Having  disposed  of  the  Sec- 


The  President  and  His  Cabinet        43 l 

retary's  criticisms  on  an  alleged  lack  of  domestic  and 
foreign  policy,  Lincoln  then  took  up  the  scheme 
outlined  by  Seward,  and  said:  "I  remark  that,  if  this 
must  be  done,  I  must  do  it."  This  effectually  settled 
any  question  which  Mr.  Seward  might  have  enter- 
tained in  his  own  mind  as  to  the  primacy  of  any  man 
in  that  Cabinet.  It  should  be  said,  to  the  credit  of 
Lincoln,  the  wise,  kindly,  and  generous  statesman, 
that  until  after  his  death  this  paper,  which  might 
have  wrought  ruin  to  its  author,  remained  locked  as 
securely  in  secrecy  as  the  fact  that  the  newly  installed 
Secretary  of  State  had  sought  to  assert  himself  as  the 
power  behind  the  throne.  And  to  the  end  of  his 
own  heroic  life  Lincoln  kept  his  unwavering  trust  in 
Seward,  who,  in  his  turn,  served  his  country  and  his 
illustrious  chief  with  an  equally  unwavering  devotion. 
Another  incident  which  illustrates  the  intimacy 
and  candor  of  the  relations  existing  between  the 
President  and  Secretary  Seward  was  the  revision  of 
an  important  despatch  sent  from  the  Department  of 
State  to  Mr.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Minister  of  the 
United  States  to  Great  Britain.  This  despatch  was 
written  in  May,  1861,  when  our  relations  with  several 
of  the  greater  European  powers  were  in  a  strained 
and  delicate  condition,  and  there  was  danger  that 
those  powers  might  interfere  in  behalf  of  the  Rebel 
Confederacy  and  embarrass  the  Federal  cause,  if  not 
bring  disaster  upon  it.  The  Secretary's  original 
draught  of  that  important  and  memorable  despatch, 
amended  and  corrected  by  the  President,  is  still  in 
existence.  The  Secretary  had  been  rather  peremp- 
tory in  some  of  his  statements,  and  a  part  of  the  duty 


43 2  Abraham  Lincoln 

of  the  President,  as  the  document  now  shows,  was  to 
soften  these  asperities  without  lowering  its  tone  and 
without  injury  to  its  dignity.  For  example,  where 
the  Secretary  had  said  that  the  President  was  "  sur- 
prised and  grieved"  that  Mr.  Adams's  predecessor 
in  office  had  not  done  certain  things,  Mr.  Lincoln  sub- 
stituted the  word  "regrets"  for  the  stronger  phrase; 
and  he  changed  the  word  "wrongful,"  as  applied  to 
the  possible  course  of  Great  Britain,  so  that  that 
course  might  appear  to  be  "hurtful."  A  study  of 
these  verbal  changes  in  one  of  the  most  important 
state  papers  of  the  Lincoln  Administration  would  be 
highly  useful  for  one  who  desires  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  some  of  the  delicate  shades  of  mean- 
ing of  which  the  English  language  is  capable.  And, 
be  it  said,  this  was  the  work  of  that  "backwoods 
lawyer"  whom  so  many  well -seasoned  American 
statesmen  of  that  time  affected  to  deride. 

Mr.  Cameron,  Lincoln's  first  Secretary  of  War, 
was  another  member  of  the  Cabinet  who  was  early 
taught  that  the  President,  although  he  wore  "a 
glove  of  velvet,"  yet  had  that  "hand  of  steel"  which 
all  must  have  who  would  govern  well.  One  of  the 
most  vociferous  cries  of  the  Southern  Confederacy 
was  to  the  effect  that  the  North  was  ready  to  incite  a 
servile  war  by  stirring  up  and  arming  the  slaves. 
Conservative  men  in  the  North  were  afraid  of  this 
cry,  and  some  of  them  thought  that  it  was  not  an 
unreasonable  one.  On  the  other  hand,  many  of  the 
more  advanced  Republicans  early  besieged  the  Presi- 
dent to  take  steps  to  use  the  freedmen  in  the  military 
service;  Secretary  Cameron  was  one  of  those  who 


The  President  and  His  Cabinet        433 

believed  that  this  policy  was  necessary  and  just.  In 
his  annual  report  to  the  President,  which  was 
designed  to  be  sent  to  Congress  in  December,  1861, 
Secretary  Cameron  took  the  ground  that  abandoned 
and  fugitive  slaves  should  be  formed  into  marching 
regiments  and  employed  against  the  Rebels.  This 
suggestion  was  premature,  and  if  it  had  been  made 
public  at  that  time  it  would  have  caused  a  terrible 
outcry,  although  the  day  did  come,  but  long  after- 
wards, when  not  only  the  Union  armies  were  rein- 
forced by  black  soldiers,  but  the  Rebels  began  to 
arrange  for  a  similar  contingent  for  themselves. 
Secretary  Cameron,  as  if  aware  that  his  declaration 
in  favor  of  arming  the  freedmen  would  not  be  ap- 
proved by  the  President,  had  sent  out  printed  copies 
of  his  report  in  advance  of  its  delivery  to  Congress, 
without  first  submitting  it  to  the  President,  to  whom 
official  usage  required  that  it  should  be  addressed. 
But  the  President,  not  finding  the  document  on  his 
table,  made  inquiry  and  was  then  given  a  copy  of  the 
report,  which  was  to  accompany  his  annual  message 
to  Congress.  Fortunately,  the  copies  of  the  War 
report  were  still  in  the  hands  of  postmasters  in  cities, 
with  directions  to  deliver  to  newspaper  offices  at  a 
certain  date.  They  were  all  recalled  by  telegraphic 
orders,  and  the  document  was  reprinted  with  the 
objectionable  parts  stricken  out. 

It  may  be  supposed  that  this  incident  somewhat 
nettled  Secretary  Cameron,  who  does  not  appear  to 
have  accepted  his  implied  reproof  as  gracefully  as 
Secretary  Seward  accepted  disapproval  of  his  cher- 
ished "policy."  At  any  rate,  the  Secretary  of  War 


434  Abraham  Lincoln 

soon  began  to  complain  of  the  irksomeness  of  his 
official  duties,  and  to  signify  his  desire  to  go  abroad. 
Accordingly,  in  January  of  the  following  year,  the 
President  wrote  him  a  note,  and,  after  referring  to  the 
Secretary's  frequently  expressed  desire  for  a  change 
of  place,  accepted  the  situation  for  him  and  offered 
him  the  post  of  Minister  to  Russia.  The  offer  was 
accepted  by  General  Cameron,  who  resigned  from 
the  Cabinet  and  went  abroad.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Mr.  Stan  ton,  who  had  been  Attorney-General 
during  the  closing  weeks  of  the  Buchanan  Admin- 
istration. It  is  worthy  of  remark  here  that  Lincoln's 
faculty  for  holding  the  friendship  of  those  who  were 
once  allied  to  him  did  not  fail  him  in  this  instance. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause  of  Cameron's 
departure  from  the  Cabinet,  Lincoln  remained  his 
steadfast  friend.  Several  months  after  Cameron's 
withdrawal,  some  of  his  enemies  in  Congress  made  a 
fierce  attack  upon  him  in  a  series  of  resolutions  con- 
demning him  for  certain  acts  done  in  the  first  days 
of  the  rebellion.  Whereupon  the  President  sent  to 
Congress  a  special  message  in  which  he  stated  that 
the  transactions  complained  of  were  not  the  exclu- 
sive work  of  the  Secretary  of  War,  but  were  ordered 
by  the  President,  with  the  full  concurrence  of  all  the 
members  of  his  Cabinet.  Cameron  gratefully  ac- 
knowledged this  unsought  and  manly  defence  of  his 
official  honor,  and  remained  Lincoln's  steadfast 
friend. 

Lincoln  apparently  found  Mr.  Chase,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Treasury,  more  difficult  to  satisfy  than  any 
other  of  the  members  of  his  so-called  official  family. 


The  President  and  His  Cabinet        435 

As  Governor  of  the  great  State  of  Ohio,  United 
States  Senator,  and  a  leader  of  the  advanced  wing  of 
the  Republican  party,  Mr.  Chase  very  naturally  had 
had  political  ambitions ;  and  these  were  not  laid  aside 
when  he  entered  the  Cabinet.  He  had  a  large  and 
admiring  following,  and  many  of  those  who  did  not 
like  Lincoln's  policy  of  administration  turned  to 
Chase  as  the  most  promising  candidate  to  succeed 
Lincoln  in  office.  It  is  possible  that  these  considera- 
tions disturbed  the  serenity  of  Mr.  Chase's  mind,  and 
made  him  at  times  querulous  and  petulant.  His 
diary,  published  after  his  death,  shows  that,  while  he 
was  a  member  of  Lincoln's  Cabinet,  he  was  greatly 
dissatisfied  with  the  conduct  of  public  affairs,  and 
that  he  longed  to  take  the  reins  of  power  and  show 
how  the  country  should  be  governed.  He  was  so 
jealous  of  his  own  official  rights  and  privileges  that 
he  was  frequently  at  odds  with  the  good  President, 
and  he  more  than  once  resigned  his  office,  or  threat- 
ened to  resign  it,  unless  he  was  permitted  to  have  his 
own  way.  He  was  disturbed  by  the  schemes  which 
well-meaning  friends  set  on  foot  to  make  him  the 
Presidential  candidate  in  1864;  and  he  had  for  some 
time  advocated  the  proposition  that  no  man  should 
have  a  second  term  of  the  Presidential  office.  Finally, 
in  June,  1864,  the  Secretary  once  more  tendered  his 
resignation,  and  it  was  accepted.  David  Tod,  of 
Ohio,  was  first  nominated  by  the  President  to  take 
the  place  thus  made  vacant;  and  on  his  declining 
the  honor,  it  was  tendered  to  William  Pitt  Fessenden, 
then  United  States  Senator  from  Maine,  and  was  by 
him  accepted. 


436  Abraham  Lincoln 

If  Mr.  Chase  departed  from  the  Cabinet  with  any 
unfriendliness  towards  the  President,  we  may  be 
sure  that  Lincoln  did  not  hold  any  such  feeling  to- 
wards Chase.  When  Roger  B.  Taney,  Chief -Justice 
of  the  United  States,  died  in  1864,  the  friends  of  Mr. 
Chase  clamorously  demanded  that  the  ex-Secretary 
of  the  Treasury  should  take  the  place  thus  made 
vacant  on  the  bench  of  the  Supreme  Court.  Indeed, 
there  was  a  very  general  public  feeling  that  this  ap- 
pointment would  be  a  wise  one,  although  Mr.  Lin- 
coln's immediate  friends,  mindful  of  Chase's  conduct 
in  the  Cabinet,  remonstrated  against  his  elevation  to 
the  lofty  post  of  Chief -Just  ice.  While  this  discus- 
sion was  going  on,  the  writer  of  these  lines  had 
occasion  to  visit  the  President  in  his  private  office. 
The  President,  who  was  in  a  happy  frame  of  mind, 
jocularly  asked,  "What  are  people  talking  about 
now?"  His  caller  replied  that  they  were  discussing 
the  probability  of  Chase's  being  appointed  Chief - 
Justice.  The  smile  on  the  President's  face  faded, 
and  he  said  with  gravity  and  sadness:  "My  friends 
all  over  the  country  are  trying  to  put  up  the  bars 
between  me  and  Governor  Chase.  I  have  a  vast 
number  of  messages  and  letters,  from  men  who  think 
they  are  my  friends,  imploring  and  warning  me  not  to 
appoint  him."  He  paused  for  a  moment,  and  then, 
pointing  to  a  pile  of  telegrams  and  letters  on  the 
table,  said:  "Now,  I  know  meaner  things  about 
Governor  Chase  than  any  of  those  men  can  tell  me ; 
but  I  am  going  to  nominate  him."  Three  days  after 
that  the  appointment  was  made  public. 

Mr.  Montgomery  Blair  was  another  member  of  the 


The  President  and  His  Cabinet        437 

Cabinet  who,  after  much  patient  forbearance  on  the 
part  of  President  Lincoln,  was  finally  dismissed  in 
such  a  way  as  to  let  him  out  of  the  council  without 
in  the  least  injuring  his  feelings.  From  the  first, 
Mr.  Blair  had  not  been  very  kindly  disposed  towards 
Secretary  Chase;  these  two  men  represented  the 
extreme  wings  of  the  party,  Chase  being  the  more 
radical,  and  Blair  the  ultra-conservative.  Among 
other  offences  of  the  Postmaster-General  was  the 
delivery  of  a  caustic  speech  at  Rockville,  Md.,  during 
the  summer  of  1864,  in  which  he  set  forth  his  griev- 
ances against  the  "radicals,"  and  assumed,  as  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet,  to  defend  the  President 
against  the  attacks  of  said  "radicals."  This  grieved 
and  worried  the  President,  and  when  these  things 
became  no  longer  endurable,  the  President,  towards 
the  end  of  September,  1864,  wrote  Mr.  Blair  a  note 
in  which  he  reminded  the  Postmaster-General  that 
he  (Mr.  Blair)  had  generously  offered  on  more  than 
one  occasion  to  give  the  President  his  resignation. 
"The  time  has  come,"  continued  Lincoln,  reminding 
Mr.  Blair  that  this  accepting  of  a  resignation  never 
formally  made  in  writing  would  be  a  relief  to  the 
Chief  Executive.  Mr.  Blair  took  his  dismissal  with- 
out anger,  and  he  was  thereafter  a  loyal  friend  of 
Lincoln  to  the  end. 

Previous  to  this  departure  of  Mr.  Blair  from  the 
Cabinet,  there  had  been  some  unpleasantness  among 
his  colleagues  on  account  of  certain  remarks  which 
the  Postmaster-General  was  alleged  to  have  made, 
greatly  to  the  wrath  of  General  Halleck  and  Secretary 
Stanton,  which  last-named  functionary  Mr.  Blair  did 


438  Abraham  Lincoln 

not  love.  The  matter  was  brought  to  the  attention 
of  the  President,  who,  at  the  next  meeting  of  the 
Cabinet,  as  if  he  were  aware  that  some  of  the  members 
of  the  Cabinet  were  hoping  that  the  difficulty  would 
end  by  crowding  the  Postmaster  General  out,  pre- 
pared a  paper,  which  he  read  to  them,  as  follows: 

"  I  must  myself  be  the  judge  how  long  to  retain  in  and 
when  to  remove  any  one  of  you  from  his  position.  It 
would  greatly  pain  me  to  discover  any  of  you  endeavoring 
to  procure  another's  removal,  or  in  any  way  to  prejudice 
him  before  the  public.  Such  endeavor  would  be  a  wrong 
to  me,  and,  much  worse,  a  wrong  to  the  country.  My 
wish  is  that  on  this  subject  no  remark  be  made  nor  ques- 
tion asked  by  any  of  you,  here  or  elsewhere,  now  or 
hereafter." 

This  remarkable  little  address  should  be  read  by 
any  one  who  has  been  led  to  believe  that  President 
Lincoln  was  without  authority  in  the  administration 
that  bears  his  name. 

During  the  great  popular  depression  which  pre- 
vailed just  before  the  Democratic  party  made  its 
Presidential  nomination  in  1864,  and  when  the  cam- 
paign of  the  Republicans  lagged  with  indescribable 
languor,  and  the  military  situation  was  dark  and 
cloudy,  Lincoln  began  to  share  in  the  prevailing 
impression  that  he  would  not  be  re-elected.  Then 
his  enemies  circulated  the  absurd  rumor  that  the 
President  and  his  Cabinet,  being  assured  of  defeat  at 
the  polls,  would  willingly  help  on  the  ruin  which 
they  had  not  been  able  to  avert.  With  these  things 
in  view,  Mr.  Lincoln,  on  the  23d  of  August,  wrote  the 
following  memorandum: 


The  President  and  His  Cabinet        439 

"  This  morning,  as  for  some  days  past,  it  seems  exceed- 
ingly probable  that  this  administration  will  not  be  re- 
elected.  Then  it  will  be  my  duty  to  so  co-operate  with 
the  President-elect  as  to  save  the  Union  between  the 
election  and  the  inauguration;  as  he  will  have  secured 
his  election  on  such  ground  that  he  cannot  possibly  save  it 
afterwards." 

If  Lincoln  were  defeated  by  the  Democratic  candi- 
date, who  had  not  then  been  named,  the  successful 
nominee  must  have  been  pledged  to  a  line  of  policy 
which  would  be  destructive  of  the  Union.  So,  hav- 
ing pledged  himself  to  co-operation  with  the  Presi- 
dent-elect, whoever  he  might  be,  Mr.  Lincoln  folded 
the  sheet  on  which  he  had  written  the  memorandum 
above  quoted,  and,  having  pasted  its  edges,  re- 
quested each  member  of  his  Cabinet  to  sign  his  name 
on  the  back  thereof,  none  but  the  President  knowing 
the  contents  of  the  paper.  In  November,  when 
Lincoln  had  been  re-elected,  he  recalled  to  the  minds 
of  his  Cabinet  ministers  this  incident,  reminding 
them  that  it  had  occurred  at  a  time  when  his  ad- 
ministration, pending  the  nomination  of  the  Demo- 
cratic candidate,  "had  no  adversary,  and  seemed  to 
have  no  friends. ' '  Then  the  paper  was  unsealed,  and 
the  ministers  present  for  the  first  time  saw  how  sin- 
gularly the  President  had  pledged  himself  and  them 
to  a  loyal  and  sincere  acceptance  of  the  result  of  the 
Presidential  election,  whatever  that  result  might  be. 

It  may  be  truly  said  of  Lincoln  that,  in  spite  of  his 
alleged  slowness,  he  never  took  one  backward  step. 
Each  step  was  taken  with  great  care,  but,  having 
' '  put  his  foot  down, ' '  he  was  immovable.  Neverthe- 


44°  Abraham  Lincoln 

less,  in  considering  any  important  move,  he  con- 
sulted with  his  Cabinet  ministers  frankly  and  fully, 
not  as  some  generals  held  councils  of  war,  abiding  by 
the  vote  of  the  majority  of  those  present,but  heark- 
ening to  the  council  and  pursuing  his  own  course 
afterwards.  The  most  striking  instance  of  his  open- 
ness to  arguments  opposed  to  his  own  convictions  is 
that  of  the  proposed  payment  of  a  large  sum  of 
money  to  the  Rebel  States  for  the  extinguishment  of 
slavery  within  their  borders.  The  President  had 
calculated  that  this  payment  would  end  the  war  and 
save  many  precious  lives.  He  submitted  his  plan  to 
the  Cabinet  at  a  meeting  held  in  February,  1865, 
very  soon  after  the  celebrated  conference  between 
himself  and  the  Rebel  commissioners  at  Hampton 
Roads.  To  his  great  surprise,  the  members  of  the 
Cabinet  were  unanimously  opposed  to  the  proposed 
scheme.  They  did  not  believe  Congress  would  be 
willing  to  consent  to  paying  the  Rebel  States  for  the 
freeing  of  their  slaves;  and  it  was  urged  that  if  the 
scheme  were  made  public  and  failed  of  consummation 
it  would  result  in  harm.  According  to  the  report  of 
those  present,  Lincoln  sadly  said:  "You  are  all  op- 
posed to  me,  and  I  will  not  send  the  message."  The 
document,  which  was  in  the  form  of  a  message  to  Con- 
gress recommending  the  plan  here  outlined,  was  folded 
by  the  President,  and  indorsed  with  the  simple  state- 
ment that  the  plan  therein  contained  had  been 
unanimously  disapproved  by  the  Cabinet.  This  was 
Lincoln's  simple  way  of  disposing  of  a  matter  which 
he  felt  he  could  not  undertake  to  carry  through  with- 
out the  concurrence  of  his  constitutional  advisers. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 

END    OF    A    STRANGE    EVENTFUL    HISTORY. 

Symptoms  of  a  Collapse  of  the  Confederacy — Lee  Seeks  a  Parley  with 
Grant — The  Fall  of  Richmond — Flight  of  the  Rebel  Government 
— Lincoln  in  the  Former  Rebel  Capital — He  Goes  to  the  Front — 
The  Surrender  of  Lee — Great  Joy  of  the  People — The  National 
Capital  in  a  Frenzy  of  Delight — Lincoln's  Last  Public  Speech — 
His  Death  and  Funeral — Conclusion. 

THE  spring  of  1865  opened  with  every  prospect  of 
a  speedy  and  complete  ending  of  the  rebellion. 
Sherman's  march  to  the  sea  had  once  more  rent  the 
dying  Confederacy,  even  more  disastrously  than  the 
opening  of  the  Mississippi  had  previously  split  it  into 
two  large  fragments.  Everywhere,  on  land  and  sea, 
the  arms  of  the  Union  had  been  crowned  with 
victory.  Sherman's  movements  in  the  Carolinas  had 
compelled  the  abandonment  of  Charleston.  The 
capture  of  Fort  Fisher  by  General  Terry  had  virtu- 
ally closed  the  last  Atlantic  port  against  possible 
supplies  from  abroad  for  the  Rebel  forces.  The 
scattered  remnants  of  their  armies  were  forced  to 
concentrate  and  rally  around  Lee  for  the  defence  of 
the  Rebel  capital,  and  on  the  3d  of  March,  the  day 
before  the  second  inauguration  of  Lincoln,  news 
reached  him  that  Lee  had  at  last  sought  an  interview 
with  Grant  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  if  any  terms  of 
peace  could  be  considered.  True  to  their  settled 

441 


442  Abraham  Lincoln 

purpose,  and  desperate  to  the  last,  the  Rebels  sought 
to  make  peace  for  themselves  and  retain  something 
more  than  would  be  exacted  by  a  conqueror.  Lin- 
coln ordered  the  Secretary  of  War  to  send  a  message 
to  Grant,  directing  him  to  hold  no  conference  with 
Lee,  except  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  a  capitula- 
tion of  his  army,  or  on  some  other  purely  military 
matter.  There  must  be  no  discussion  of  any  political 
question.  Such  matters  the  President  would  hold 
in  his  own  hands;  and,  meantime,  Grant  must  press 
to  the  utmost  his  military  advantages. 

On  the  27th  of  March  a  conference  of  Lincoln, 
Grant,  and  Sherman  was  held  on  board  of  a  steamer 
lying  in  the  James  River,  near  Grant's  head-quarters, 
at  which  the  final  and  decisive  measures  of  the  cam- 
paign were  discussed.  Lincoln  was  informed  that 
one  more  fierce  and  bloody  battle  would  be  neces- 
sary; at  that  prospect  his  humane  spirit  revolted, 
and  he  exclaimed:  "Must  blood  be  shed?  Cannot 
this  bloody  battle  be  avoided?"  It  was  avoided,  as 
Lincoln  had  hoped  and  prayed,  by  Lee's  despairing 
and  unconditional  surrender.  Sheridan,  who  had 
been  manoeuvring  far  to  Grant's  left,  by  dint  of  ten 
days'  rapid  marching  and  almost  incessant  fighting, 
had  cut  off  the  last  avenue  of  Lee's  escape  southward 
with  the  Army  of  Virginia,  the  last  prop  of  the  Con- 
federacy, and  had  made  its  surrender  merely  a  matter 
of  a  few  days,  at  the  furthest.  Closely  followed  by 
Grant,  Sheridan  had  now  drawn  a  line  completely 
around  Lee's  army.  Lee  sent  an  imperative  message 
to  Richmond  ordering  three  hundred  thousand 
rations  for  his  starving  army.  The  message  fell  into 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History     443 

Sheridan's  hands,  and  he  sent  it  on  with  the  inten- 
tion of  waylaying  and  capturing  the  supplies.  This 
was  accomplished,  and  the  Rebel  forces  were  with- 
out food.  The  Rebel  lines  were  everywhere  drawn  in, 
their  forces  operating  to  the  north  of  the  James  being 
now  joined  to  the  main  army.  Petersburg  fell  into 
the  hands  of  the  victorious  Union  troops,  and  on 
Sunday  morning,  April  ^d,  the  tolling  of  the  bells  of 
Richmond  sounded  'she  knell  of  the  rebellion,  while 
the  rolling  of  the  drums  called  the  citizens  of  the 
Rebel  capital  t  >  rally  and  take  the  places  of  soldiers 
withdrawn  forever.  J  fl^rson  Davis,  seeing  that  all 
was  lost,  fled  in  disguise  southward,  but  was  sub- 
sequently captured  and  sent  to  Fortress  Monroe,  a 
prisoner. 

On  Monday  morning,  April  3d,  the  Federal  troops, 
under  command  of  General  Weitzel,  hoisted  the  flag 
of  the  Union  over  the  building  in  Richmond  that  had 
been  occupied  by  the  Rebel  congress,  and  the  political 
power  of  the  Confederacy  vanished.  Lincoln  was  at 
City  Point,  near  Grant's  old  head-quarters,  waiting 
for  the  final  and  great  result  of  all  these  military 
movements.  Accompanied  by  Tad,  he  entered  the 
fallen  capital  of  the  Confederacy  as  soon  as  possible 
after  the  news  of  its  downfall  reached  him.  The 
scene  of  his  entry  has  been  often  described  as  a 
triumphal  one;  but  no  representative  of  a  conquer- 
ing force  ever  moved  with  less  ceremony  and  pomp. 
Unattended,  save  by  a  boat's  crew  from  a  gun- 
boat near  at  hand,  and  leading  his  little  boy  by  the 
hand,  Lincoln  entered  the  late  capital  of  the  Rebel 
Confederacy,  over  which  the  national  ensign  now 


444  Abraham  Lincoln 

peacefully  waved.  He  walked  as  one  in  a  dream. 
Richmond,  so  long  and  so  painfully  the  object  of 
Union  hopes  and  desires,  was  in  the  hands  of  the 
United  States,  its  Congress  and  bureaus  dispersed,  and 
the  members  of  its  exploded  government  fugitives. 

Multitudes  of  colored  people,  apparently  the  only 
persons  left  in  the  city  flocked  around  the  Liberator. 
They  rent  the  air  with  their  frenzied  shouts.  They 
danced,  they  sang,  they  prayed  for  blessings  on  the 
head  of  their  deliverer;  they  wept,  kneeling  at  his 
feet.  In  that  supreme  moment  Lincoln  was  speech- 
less. He  wore  no  look  of  triumph  over  a  fallen  foe, 
evidences  of  whose  poverty  and  great  trial  were 
thick  about  him.  The  tears  streamed  down  his 
cheeks,  furrowed  with  many  cares,  and,  simply  bow- 
ing his  thanks,  or  raising  his  hat  to  the  jubilant  and 
almost  hysterical  crowds  of  freed  person",  he  passed 
on  to  the  interior  of  the  city.  The  statesman  reared 
by  God's  wonderful  providence  and  diociplined  in  the 
rough  school  of  adversity,  with  the  memories  of  his 
hard  struggle  in  life  still  upon  him,  was  in  the  last 
stronghold  of  the  broken  slave  power.  His  life- 
work  was  done. 

Meanwhile,  Grant  and  Sheridan  were  drawing  their 
lines  more  closely  about  the  Rebel  army  under  Lee, 
who,  like  a  hunted  fox,  vainly  turned  this  way  and 
that  to  escape  the  net  in  which  he  was  enveloped. 
Grant  tarried  at  Petersburg  long  enough  to  meet 
the  President,  who  pressed  on  to  see  him  for  a 
moment.  The  two  men  met.  Lincoln  seized  Grant 
by  the  hands,  and  poured  forth  his  thanks  and  con- 
gratulations with  a  glowing  radiance  on  his  counte- 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History     445 

nance.  Lincoln  had  hardly  expected  that  the  end 
would  have  come  so  suddenly,  and  that  the  "one 
more  bloody  battle  "  could  have  been  thus  mercifully 
averted.  He  had  thought  that  it  would  be  necessary 
to  bring  up  Sherman's  army,  now  operating  to  the 
southward,  before  the  final  surrender  of  Lee's  army 
could  be  made  certain  and  Richmond  captured.  But 
the  collapse  of  the  Confederacy  had  come  without 
much  bloodshed  at  the  last. 

Leaving  the  President,  who  returned  to  Wash- 
ington, Grant  hurried  on  westward,  following  the 
leading  columns  of  infantry,  and  on  the  yth  of  April, 
1865,  from  the  little  village  of  Farmville,  Virginia, 
he  opened  with  General  Lee  the  correspondence  that 
resulted  in  the  surrender  of  the  Army  of  Northern 
Virginia,  April  gth,  in  the  village  of  Appomattox 
Court-House,  Virginia.  The  two  great  and  famous 
generals  met  face  to  face.  There  were  no  impres- 
sive doings  at  the  surrender.  The  terms  were  un- 
conditional. The  number  of  men  surrendered  was 
over  28,000;  and  as  they  were  in  sore  need  of  food, 
General  Grant  ordered  that  they  be  supplied  at  once 
with  rations  from  the  Union  army  commissariat.  It 
was  now  the  opening  of  the  agricultural  year,  and 
many  of  the  Rebel  soldiers  were  in  haste  to  go  home 
and  prepare  the  ground  for  seeding,  so  soon  did  the 
pursuits  of  peace  follow  in  the  trail  of  war.  Grant 
permitted  them  to  take  with  them  their  own  horses 
to  work  in  the  long-neglected  fields.  The  Rebellion 
was  over. 

The  North  was  delirious  with  joy.  First  came  the 
news  of  the  capture  of  Petersburg,  announced  in  a 


446  Abraham  Lincoln 

despatch  from  President  Lincoln  to  the  War  Depart- 
ment, and  received  in  Washington  about  10  o'clock 
in  the  morning  of  the  3d  of  April.  Three  quarters 
of  an  hour  later,  a  despatch  from  General  Weitzel 
told  the  glad  tidings  of  the  fall  of  Richmond.  Al- 
though Lee  had  not  been  overtaken,  these  despatches 
were  sufficient  to  set  the  people  wild.  The  end  of  the 
rebellion  was  at  hand.  Davis  a  fugitive,  men  recog- 
nized Lee  as  the  real  head  of  the  Rebellion,  but  did 
not  wait  to  hear  of  his  surrender.  The  national 
capital  was  in  a  tumult  of  excitement  and  triumph. 
Thence  the  wave  spread  all  over  the  country;  the 
news  penetrated  remote  villages  and  hamlets  in  an 
incredibly  short  space  of  time.  Flags  were  spread  to 
the  breeze.  Guns  were  fired,  and  bands,  processions, 
and  every  outward  form  of  jubilation  were  used  to 
express  the  joy  of  the  people.  The  prevailing  feeling 
was  not  one  of  victory  over  a  fallen  foe,  but  of  relief 
that  the  war  was  over.  No  more  fighting;  no  more 
dying  on  fields  of  battle;  no  more  enlistments  and 
drafts;  no  more  anxious  measures  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  the  Union.  The  war  was  over.  This  was 
the  burden  of  the  song  that  flowed  from  the  hearts 
of  millions  of  men  and  women,  relieved  at  last  from 
an  intolerable  trial  of  patience. 

In  Washington  the  rejoicings  took  the  form  of  a 
national  celebration;  the  public  departments  were 
closed  as  for  a  holiday.  Flags  flew  from  all  the 
government  buildings,  and  the  War  Department  or- 
dered a  salute  of  eight  hundred  guns,  five  hundred 
for  Richmond  and  three  hundred  for  Petersburg. 
Bands  paraded  the  streets,  and  the  members  of  the 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History     447 

Cabinet,  in  the  absence  of  the  President,  were  called 
out  to  address  the  excited  crowds.  Congress  had  ad- 
journed, but  the  city  was  full  of  Congressmen;  and 
multitudes  of  men,  bent  on  seeing  the  end  of  the 
Rebellion,  as  it  was  celebrated  in  the  capital  of  the 
nation,  had  gone  thither.  The  cheering  and  the  con- 
gratulations lasted  far  into  the  night.  The  city  was 
given  up  to  a  mighty  impromptu  festivity.  On  the 
following  day  these  demonstrations  were  renewed, 
and  on  the  night  of  the  4th  of  April  the  city  was 
illuminated.  Public  and  private  buildings  were  a 
blaze  of  light,  and  bonfires,  fireworks,  and  every 
possible  contrivance  for  the  making  of  light  and 
noise  were  resorted  to  by  the  happy  people. 

Late  in  the  night  of  April  gth,  Palm  Sunday,  the 
news  of  the  surrender  of  Lee  reached  Washington 
and  was  communicated  to  Lincoln,  who  had  returned 
and  was  waiting  for  it.  Early  on  the  following 
morning  Washington  was  startled  from  its  slumbers 
by  the  boom  of  cannon  announcing  the  great  news. 
Once  more  the  capital  went  wild  with  joy.  The  city 
took  a  general  holiday.  Once  more  the  air  resounded 
with  the  boom  of  cannon  and  the  blare  of  martial 
music.  Government  clerks  assembled  in  the  great 
rotunda  of  the  Treasury  building  and  sang  "Praise 
God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow."  A  great  throng 
of  excited  citizens,  dragging  howitzers,  poured  into 
the  grounds  of  the  White  House,  rending  the  air  with 
the  explosion  of  gunpowder  and  lusty  cheering.  Lin- 
coln, radiant  with  happiness,  appeared  at  the  his- 
toric window  under  the  great  porch,  and  bowed  and 
smiled  his  thanks.  The  crowd  would  not  depart 


448  Abraham  Lincoln 

without  a  speech,  for  which  they  loudly  called.  At 
sight  of  the  well-beloved  face,  the  throng  broke  into 
promiscuous  cries,  blessing  the  name  of  Lincoln, 
shouting  all  manner  of  joyous  recognition  of  his  ser- 
vices, and  uttering  wild  and  whirling  words  of  love. 
Men  threw  up  their  hats,  embraced  each  other,  and 
stretched  forth  their  hands  in  passionate  adoration 
of  the  savior  and  liberator  of  his  country. 

When  order  was  restored  and,  at  a  motion  from 
Lincoln's  hand,  a  breathless  silence  fell  on  the  crowd, 
he  brushed  the  tears  from  his  face,  and  briefly  con- 
gratulated the  people  on  the  grand  result  that  had 
called  out  such  unrestrained  enthusiasm.  "But," 
he  said,  ' '  I  understand  there  is  to  be  a  more  elaborate 
celebration  of  this  momentous  event  later  on,  and  I 
shall  have  nothing  to  say  then  if  it  is  all  dribbled  out 
of  me  now."  This  homely  saying  pleased  the  peo- 
ple, who  laughed  good-humoredly  and  listened  to  the 
few  words  with  which  Lincoln  concluded,  calling  for 
the  "captured  tune  of  Dixie,"  which,  he  said,  was 
ours  by  the  laws  of  war.  Then  the  President,  wav- 
ing his  hand,  proposed  three  cheers  for  General  Grant 
and  the  officers  and  men  under  him;  then  three 
more  for  the  officers  and  men  of  the  navy.  These 
were  given  with  a  will,  and  the  crowd  reluctantly 
dispersed. 

On  the  evening  of  the  i  ith  of  April,  Washington 
was  illuminated  by  the  Government,  and  again  every 
possible  token  of  national  rejoicing  was  put  into 
requisition.  This  was  the  formal  celebration  that 
Lincoln  had  alluded  to  and  for  which  he  was  prepared. 
Coming  into  the  drawing-room  that  night,  after  a 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History     449 

little  company  of  friends  of  the  family  had  dined 
together,  he  laid  a  roll  of  manuscript  on  a  table,  and, 
noticing  a  look  of  surprise  on  the  countenance  of  one 
of  these,  he  said : 

"  I  know  what  you  are  thinking  about.  You  think  it 
mighty  queer  that  an  old  stump-speaker  like  myself 
should  not  be  able  to  address  a  crowd  like  this  outside 
without  a  written  speech.  But  you  must  remember  I 
am,  in  a  certain  way,  talking  to  the  country,  and  I  have 
to  be  mighty  careful.  Now,  the  last  time  I  made  an  off- 
hand speech,  in  answer  to  a  serenade,  I  used  the  phrase, 
as  applied  to  the  Rebels, '  turned  tail  and  ran.'  Some  very 
nice  Boston  folks,  I  am  grieved  to  hear,  were  very  much 
outraged  by  that  phrase,  which  they  thought  improper. 
So  I  resolved  to  make  no  more  impromptu  speeches  if  I 
could  help  it." 

Subsequently  he  said  that  it  was  Senator  Sumner 
who  had  given  voice  to  the  complaint  of  ''the  nice 
Boston  folks,"  and  with  considerable  emphasis. 

It  was  a  notable,  even  an  historic  occasion.  At 
last  the  war  was  over.  Outside  of  the  house  was  a 
vast  crowd,  cheering  and  shouting  with  a  roar  like 
that  of  the  sea.  A  small  battery  from  the  navy 
yard  occasionally  rent  the  air  with  a  salute,  and  the 
clamor  of  brass  bands  and  the  hissing  of  fireworks 
added  to  the  confusion  and  racket  in  front  of  the 
mansion.  Lincoln  and  a  few  friends  lingered  until  it 
was  time  for  him  to  begin  his  speech.  As  the  little 
party  mounted  the  stairs  to  the  upper  part  of  the 
house,  there  was  a  tremendous  din  outside,  as  if  roars 
of  laughter  were  mingling  with  the  music  and  cheers. 


29. 


450  Abraham  Lincoln 

Inside  of  the  house,  at  one  of  the  front  windows  on 
the  right  of  the  staircase,  was  old  Edward,  the  con- 
servative and  dignified  butler  of  the  White  House, 
struggling  with  Tad  and  trying  to  drag  him  back  from 
the  window,  from  which  he  was  waving  a  Confederate 
flag,  captured  in  some  fight  and  given  to  the  boy. 
The  crowd  recognized  Tad,  who  frantically  waved 
the  flag  as  he  fought  with  Edward,  while  the  people 
roared  with  delight. 

Edward  conquered,  and,  followed  by  a  parting 
cheer  from  the  throng  below,  Tad  rushed  to  his 
father  with  his  complaints.  But  the  President,  just 
then  approaching  the  centre  window  overlooking  the 
portico,  stood  with  a  beaming  face  before  the  vast 
assembly  beneath,  and  the  mighty  cheer  that  arose 
drowned  all  other  sounds.  The  speech  began  with 
the  words,  "We  meet  this  evening  not  in  sorrow,  but 
in  gladness  of  heart." 

As  Lincoln  spoke,  the  multitude  below  was  as 
silent  as  if  the  great  court-yard  were  deserted.  Then 
as  his  speech  was  written  on  loose  sheets,  and  the 
candles  placed  for  him  were  too  low,  he  took  a  light 
in  his  hand  and  went  on  with  his  reading.  Soon 
coming  to  the  end  of  a  page,  he  found  some  difficulty 
in  handling  the  manuscript  and  holding  the  candle- 
stick. A  friend  who  stood  behind  the  drapery  of 
the  window  reached  out  and  took  the  candle,  and 
held  it  until  the  end  of  the  speech,  and  the  President 
let  the  loose  pages  fall  on  the  floor  one  by  one,  Tad 
picking  them  up  as  they  fell  and  impatiently  calling 
for  more  as  they  fluttered  from  his  father's  hand. 

The  speech,  it  must  be  said,  was  not  what  the  peo- 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History      45 T 

pie  had  expected.  It  was  not  a  shout  of  jubilation 
and  triumph.  It  was  a  political  address.  The 
Unionists  of  Louisiana  had  formed  a  State  Legisla- 
ture, abolished  slavery,  and  enacted  a  law  giving  the 
blacks  the  right  to  vote.  Many  conservative  per- 
sons thought  this  was  too  rapid  a  movement,  and 
that  there  was  no  legal  right  residing  in  the  so-called 
Legislature  to  pass  such  measures.  Much  of  Lin- 
coln's speech  on  this  occasion,  after  a  few  sentences 
referring  to  the  great  topic  of  the  day,  was  devoted  to 
a  discussion  of  the  Louisiana  question,  as  it  was 
already  called.  One  of  his  illustrations  was  this: 
"Concede  that  the  new  government  of  Louisiana  is 
only  to  what  it  should  be  as  the  egg  is  to  the  fowl, 
we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by  hatching  it  than 
by  smashing  it."  This  figure  of  speech  was  disliked 
by  those  who  did  not  agree  with  Lincoln. 

Lincoln  had  made  his  last  speech.  Great  events 
hurried  after  each  other  from  that  night  to  the  morn- 
ing of  the  1 4th  of  April,  1865.  These  marked  the 
disappearance  of  the  last  vestiges  of  the  fallen  and 
broken  Confederacy.  At  noon  on  the  i4th  was  held 
the  last  meeting  of  the  Cabinet,  at  which  General 
Grant  was  present.  While  waiting  for  the  latest 
arrival  of  the  ministers,  Lincoln  was  observed  to  wear 
a  grave  look.  He  explained  that  he  had  had  a 
strange  dream, — a  remarkable  presentiment.  What 
it  was  he  did  not  say,  but  abruptly  proceeded  to 
business.  After  the  Cabinet  meeting,  he  drove  out 
for  an  hour  with  Mrs.  Lincoln,  talking  cheerfully 
about  their  plans  for  the  future  and  what  would  be 
possible  and  best  for  them  and  the  boys  when  they 


45  2  Abraham  Lincoln 

should  finally  leave  the  White  House,  at  the  end  of 
his  second  term.  Mrs.  Lincoln  desired  to  visit 
Europe,  and  Lincoln  was  not  wholly  certain  whether 
it  would  be  best  to  fix  his  residence  finally  in  his  old 
home  in  Springfield,  or  in  California, where  he  thought 
the  boys  might  have  a  better  start  in  life  than  in  any 
of  the  older  portions  of  the  Republic. 

That  night,  as  had  been  arranged,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Lincoln,  accompanied  by  General  Grant  and  a  few 
personal  friends,  were  to  visit  the  theatre.  The  fact 
had  been  announced  in  the  newspapers,  and  an  un- 
usually large  audience  collected.  General  Grant  was 
detained  by  business,  and  the  President,  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln, Miss  Clara  Harris  (a  daughter  of  Senator  Ira 
Harris,  of  New  York),  and  Major  Rathbone,  of  the 
army,  occupied  a  box  near  the  stage,  in  the  upper 
tier  of  boxes.  John  Wilkes  Booth,  an  actor,  had 
conspired  with  certain  others  to  take  the  President's 
life  on  the  first  convenient  occasion.  This  man,  so 
far  as  known,  had  no  personal  grievance  of  which 
to  complain.  He  had  been  possessed  by  an  insane 
notion  that  Lincoln  was  an  inhuman  tyrant  whose 
death  was  desirable.  He  and  his  companions  had 
made  their  plans  with  great  care  and  forethought. 
On  this  night  he  had  a  fleet  horse  ready  in  the  rear 
of  the  theatre  to  bear  him  away  when  the  deed  should 
be  done. 

At  half -past  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening,  while  those 
present  were  absorbed  in  what  was  happening  on  the 
stage,  the  assassin,  who  had  passed  unnoticed  into 
the  rear  of  the  box  occupied  by  the  President  and  his 
friends,  held  a  pistol  within  a  few  inches  of  the  head  of 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History      453 

Lincoln,  near  the  base  of  the  brain,  as  he  crept 
behind  his  illustrious  victim,  and  fired.  The  ball 
entered  the  brain,  and  Lincoln  fell  forward  insensible. 
The  shot  starfled  the  great  audience,  but  the  posi- 
tion of  the  box  did  not  allow  many  to  see  what  had 
happened.  Major  Rathbone  sprang  to  his  feet  and 
attempted  to  seize  the  assassin,  who,  drawing  a  long 
knife,  stabbed  Rathbone  in  the  arm,  and,  profiting 
by  the  Major's  repulse,  jumped  from  the  box  to  the 
stage.  Striding  across  the  stage,  he  brandished  the 
knife,  crying:  "Sic  semper  tyrannis!"  —the  motto  of 
the  State  of  Virginia—  •"  Ever  so  to  tyrants."  Then 
adding,  "The  South  is  avenged!"  he  vanished  and 
was  seen  no  more. 

In  the  midst  of  confusion  and  lamentation  inde- 
scribable, the  insensible  form  of  Lincoln  was  carried 
from  the  theatre  to  a  private  residence  across  the 
street,  and  his  family  were  sent  for,  and  members  of 
the  Government  made  haste  to  assemble.  Robert 
Lincoln,  his  mother,  the  secretaries  of  the  President, 
members  of  the  Cabinet,  and  a  few  of  the  personal 
friends  of  the  family  watched  by  the  bed  of  the  dying 
President  through  the  night.  No  human  skill  could 
save  that  precious  life,  and  all  that  science  could  do 
was  merely  to  support  the  vigorous  and  well-trained 
natural  powers  as  they  struggled  involuntarily  with 
approaching  death.  The  President  uttered  no  word, 
and  gave  no  sign  of  being  conscious  of  what  had  taken 
place,  or  of  the  presence  of  those  about  him.  The 
tremulous  whispers  of  medical  attendants,  the  sup- 
pressed sobs  of  strong  men,  and  the  labored  breath- 
ing of  the  dying  man  were  the  only  sounds  that  broke 


454  Abraham  Lincoln 

the  stillness  of  the  chamber.  At  twenty-two  minutes 
past  seven  o'clock,  on  the  morning  of  April  i5th,  the 
mighty  heart  had  ceased  to  beat.  Lincoln  was  dead. 

While  this  tragedy  was  taking  place  in  the  theatre, 
other  members  of  the  gang  had  attempted  to  take  the 
lives  of  other  members  of  the  Government.  Plans  to 
assassinate  Vice-President  Johnson  and  Secretary 
Stan  ton,  of  the  War  Department,  were  turned  aside 
by  what  seemed  to  be  accidental  circumstances. 
Secretary  Seward  was  confined  to  his  bed  by  an  acci- 
dent, and  one  assassin  contrived  to  elude  the  keeper 
of  the  house-door  and  penetrate  to  the  Secretary's 
sick-room,  where  he  attacked  the  invalid  and  in- 
flicted several  frightful  dagger-wounds  upon  his  face 
and  head.  Mr.  Seward's  son  and  others  of  the 
family  were  able  to  thwart  the  ruffian's  purpose  and 
save  the  life  of  the  venerable  Secretary.  The  would- 
be  assassin  escaped  for  a  time,  but  was  afterwards 
caught.  Several  of  his  accomplices  were  arrested 
and,  after  trial  and  conviction,  were  put  to  death, 
Mr.  Seward's  assailant  among  the  number.  The  man 
who  assassinated  Lincoln  was  hunted  down  finally, 
caged  in  a  barn  in  Maryland,  and  shot  like  a  dog. 

As  the  sun  rose  red  over  Washington  on  the 
morning  of  April  isth,  the  body  of  Lincoln  was 
carried  to  the  White  House,  followed  by  a  little  pro- 
cession of  weeping  but  stern -faced  men.  Grief  and 
a  vague  desire  for  revenge  for  this  cruel  and  needless 
crime  struggled  for  the  mastery.  This  was  the  feel- 
ing all  over  the  country,  when  the  heavy  tidings  of 
the  foul  and  most  unnatural  murder  went  forth  over 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land.  Flags  that  had 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History      455 

been  flying  in  triumph  were  lowered  to  half-mast  in 
sorrow.  It  is  no  stretch  of  imagination  to  say  that  a 
great  wave  of  lamentation,  spontaneous  and  exceed- 
ing bitter,  swept  over  the  Republic.  Bells  were 
tolled  and  minute-guns  were  fired.  For  days  all 
ordinary  business,  except  that  of  the  most  impera- 
tive importance,  was  practically  suspended,  and  the 
nation  seemed  abandoned  to  its  mighty  grief. 

Andrew  Johnson,  the  Vice-President  of  the  United 
States,  by  virtue  of  his  office  now  succeeded  to  the 
Presidency,  and,  shortly  after  the  body  of  Lincoln 
had  been  borne  to  the  White  House,  he  was  sworn 
into  office. 

On  Wednesday,  April  igth,  the  funeral  of  the  dead 
President  took  place  at  the  White  House,  in  the 
midst  of  an  assemblage  of  the  chief  men  of  the 
nation.  From  the  mansion  in  which  the  beloved 
Lincoln  had  suffered  and  toiled  so  much  for  the  good 
of  the  people,  his  form  was  carried  to  the  Capitol  of 
the  nation,  in  the  rotunda  of  which  it  lay  in  state  for 
one  day,  guarded  by  a  company  of  high  officers  of 
the  army  and  navy  and  a  detachment  of  soldiers. 
Thousands  of  men,  women,  and  children  passed 
through  the  building  to  take  their  last  look  of  the 
face  of  Lincoln,  white  in  his  coffin.  It  was  a  memor- 
able spectacle,  and  sighs  and  sobs  attested  the 
genuine  grief  of  those  who  crowded  in  weeping 
throngs  to  see  the  Emancipator  for  the  last  time. 

Lincoln  was  buried  in  Oak  Ridge  Cemetery,  near 
Springfield,  Illinois.  The  funeral  train  left  Washing- 
ton on  the  2ist  of  April,  and  traversed  nearly  the 
same  route  that  had  been  passed  over  by  the  train 


456  Abraham  Lincoln 

that  bore  him,  President-elect,  from  Springfield  to 
Washington  four  years  before.  It  was  a  funeral 
unique,  wonderful.  Nearly  two  thousand  miles  were 
traversed;  the  people  lined  the  entire  distance, 
almost  without  interval,  standing  with  uncovered 
heads,  mute  with  grief,  as  the  sombre  cortege  swept 
by.  Even  night  and  falling  showers  did  not  keep  them 
away  from  the  line  of  the  sad  procession.  Watch-fires 
blazed  along  the  route  in  the  darkness,  and  by  day 
every  device  that  could  lend  picturesqueness  to  the 
mournful  scene  and  express  the  woe  of  the  people 
was  employed.  In  some  of  the  larger  cities  the  coffin 
of  the  illustrious  dead  was  lifted  from  the  funeral 
train  and  carried  through  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
attended  by  mighty  processions  of  citizens,  forming 
a  funeral  pageant  of  proportions  so  magnificent  and 
imposing  that  the  world  has  never  since  seen  the  like. 
Thus,  honored  in  his  funeral,  guarded  to  his  grave 
by  famed  and  battle-scarred  generals  of  the  army, 
Lincoln's  body  was  laid  to  rest  at  last  near  his  old 
home.  Friends,  neighbors,  men  who  had  known  and 
loved  homely  and  kindly  honest  Abe  Lincoln,  assem- 
bled to  pay  their  final  tribute  of  affection  and  honor 
at  his  burying-place.  And,  with  the  remains  of  his 
darling  little  son  Willie  by  his  side,  he  was  left  whose 
life  had  begun  in  the  poverty  and  obscurity  of  an 
American  wilderness,  and  ended  in  the  full  blaze  of 
the  white  light  that  beats  upon  a  place  conspicuous 
in  the  world's  wide  fame.  In  due  time  a  noble 
monument,  reared  by  the  loving  hands  of  the  people 
to  whom  he  had  dedicated  his  life,  rose  to  mark  the 
spot. 


End  of  a  Strange  Eventful  History      457 

It  seemed  as  if  the  whole  civilized  world  were 
arrested  in  its  daily  concerns  of  life  by  this  tragic 
calamity.  From  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  from 
kings  and  queens,  emperors,  senates,  and  legislative 
assemblies,  from  private  individuals,  high  and  low, 
and  from  convocations  of  the  plain  people  of  many 
lands,  came  messages  of  sympathy,  condolence, 
respect,  and  sincere  sorrow.  It  was  a  tribute  un- 
precedented and  spontaneous  to  the  ended  life  and 
completed  services  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  author  of  this  brief  biography  has  imperfectly 
carried  out  his  purpose  if  he  has  failed  to  show  how 
the  character  of  Lincoln  was  developed  and  shaped 
by  his  early  training;  how  he  was  raised  up  and 
fitted,  in  the  obscure  seclusion  of  humble  life,  by  the 
providence  of  God,  for  a  special  and  peculiar  service ; 
how  he  became  the  type,  flower,  and  representative  of 
all  that  is  worthily  American ;  how  in  him  the  com- 
monest of  human  traits  were  blended  with  an  all- 
embracing  charity  and  the  highest  human  wisdom; 
and  how,  with  single-hearted  devotion  to  the  right, 
he  lived  unselfishly,  void  of  selfish  personal  ambition, 
and,  dying  tragically,  left  a  name  to  be  remembered 
with  love  and  honor  as  one  of  the  best  and  greatest 
of  mankind. 


INDEX. 


Altoona,  conference  of  governors 
at,  342 

American  party,  156 

Anderson,  Major  Robert,  in  the 
Black  Hawk  War,  58;  in  Fort 
Sumter,  255;  surrender  of,  256 

Andrew,  John  A.,  Governor  of 
Massachusetts,  261 

Antietam,  battle  of,  307 

Anti-Lecompton,  160 

Appomattox,  surrender  at,  445 

Arkansas,  reply  to  call  for  troops, 
261;  Halleck  in,  323 

Arming  the  freedmen,  303 

Armstrong,  Jack,  encounter  with 
Lincoln,  50;  Lincoln  defends 
his  son  on  trial  for  murder,  127 

Army  of  the  Potomac,  McClellan 
commander  of,  319,  324;  pro- 
posed reorganization  of,  334; 
ordered  to  support  Pope,  342; 
Lincoln  visits,  356;  at  Gettys- 
burg, 371;  Sabbath -breaking, 
379;  Grant's  headquarters 
with,  387;  Meade  in  command 
of,  388;  corps  commanders  of, 
388;  battles  of  the  Wilderness, 
388;  at  Appomattox,  445 

Ashmun,  George,  chairman  of 
Republican  Convention  of  1860, 
197 

Assassination,  threats  against  Lin- 
coln before  inauguration,  219 

Atchison,  David  R.,  in  the  Kan- 
sas troubles,  145 

Autobiography,  Lincoln's,  165- 
167 

Awakening  on  slavery  question, 
133 

B 


Baker,  Col.  Edward  D.,  law  part- 
ner with  Lincoln,  75;    Lincoln 


rescues,  from  mob,  87;  elected 
to  Congress,  97;  friendship 
with  Lincoln,  415 

Baltimore,  Sixth  Massachusetts 
Regiment  fired  on  in,  264 

Banks,  Gen.  Nathaniel  P.,  Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts,  262; 
under  Pope,  341 

Barn-burners,  108,  109 

Bateman,  Newton,  Lincoln's  in- 
terview with,  208 

Beauregard,  Gen.  P.  G.  T.,in  com- 
mand at  Charleston,  256;  de- 
mands surrender  of  Fort  Sum- 
ter, 256;  at  Bull  Run,  279 

Bell,  John,  and  Edward  Everett 
nominated,  191 

Berry,  partner  of  Lincoln,  65 

Big  Bethel,  Federal  defeat  at,  279 

Bissell,  William  H.,  Representa- 
tive in  Congress  from  Illinois, 

83 

Black  Hawk  War,  56-60 

Black,  Jeremiah  S.,  Attorney- 
General  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet, 

211 

Blair,  Francis  P.,  Sr.,  visits  Rich- 
mond, 404 

Blair,  Montgomery,  house  de- 
stroyed by  Rebels,  392;  dis- 
missed by  Lincoln,  437 

Blockade  of  Southern  ports  de- 
clared, 268 

Bonds,  six  per  cent.,  ordered,  360 

Boone,  Daniel,  Kentucky  pioneer, 
8 

Boonville,  Lincoln  attends  court 

at«  33 

Booth,  John  Wilkes,  452 
Breckinridge,  Robert  J.,  Lincoln 

meets,  at  Boonville,  34 
Breckinridge,  John  C.,  nominated 

for  President,  191 
Broderick,  David  C.,  his  death  in 

California,  205 
Brown,  John,  in  Kansas,  145 


45Q 


460 


Index 


Browning,  O.H., lawyer  in  Spring- 
field, 111..  83 

Buchanan,  James,  nominated  for 
President,  1^5;  elected,  158; 
at  Lincoln's  inauguration,  236 

Buell,  Gen.  Don  Carlos,  in  Ken- 
tucky, 351 

Bull  Run,  first  battle  of,  278; 
second  battle  of,  343 

Burns's    poems,    Lincoln    reads, 

3° 

Burnside,  Gen.  Ambrose  E.,  at 
Roanoke  Island,  322;  succeeds 
McClellan,  349;  at  the  battle 
of  Fredericksburg,  350;  arrests 
Vallandigham,  362;  in  Knox- 
ville,  381 

Butler,  Gen.  Benjamin  F.,  at  An- 
napolis, 267;  Fortress  Monroe, 
277;  Ship  Island,  323;  City 
Point,  391 

Butterfield,  Gen.  Daniel,  despatch 
from  Army  of  Potomac,  358 


Cabinet,  Lincoln's,  246 

Call  for  troops,  259 ;  call  and  draft 
ordered,  400 

Cameron,  Simon,  Secretary  of 
War,  432;  proposes  to  form 
negro  regiments,  433;  ap- 
pointed Minister  to  Russia, 
434;  defended  by  Lincoln,  434 

Camp,  half -faced,  12 

Cartwright,  Peter,  candidate  for 
Congress,  101 

Cass,  Gen.  Lewis,  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  60;  Lincoln's  sarcasm 
concerning,  106;  nominated 
for  President,  no;  Secretary 
of  State,  212 

Chancellorsville,  battle  of,  357 

Charleston,  111.,  Lincoln's  speech 
in,  174 

Charleston,  S.  C.,  Democratic 
Convention  in  1860,  190;  har- 
bor fortifications,  212 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  favored  by 
radical  Republicans,  383;  his 
dissatisfaction,  435 ;  resigns 
Treasury  portfolio,  435;  ap- 
pointed Chief-Justice,  436 

Chicago  Convention,  1860,  191; 
Lincoln  nominated  by,  195; 
Hamlin  nominated  by,  196 


Cincinnati  menaced  by  Rebel 
raids.  351 

Clary's  Grove  boys,  50 

Clay,  Henry,  Lincoln  reads  life  of, 
24;  Lincoln's  eulogy  of,  32;  de- 
feated for  President,  99 ;  visited 
by  Lincoln,  100 

Cobb,  Howell,  Secretary  of  Treas- 
ury in  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  211 

Cochrane,  John,  nominated  for 
Vice-President,  396 

Condition  of  people  of  the  United 
States  in  1789,  i 

Confederacy,  Rebel,  organized, 
214 

Confiscation  of  Rebel  property 
authorized  by  Congress,  359 

Conscription,  ordered,  359;  riots 
in  New  York,  374 

"Contraband,"  first  use  of  the 
word,  277,  278 

Copper  Institute,  Lincoln's  speech 
in,  185 

Cooper's  novels  read  by  young 
Lincoln,  29 

Crocodile,  Douglas's  figure  of 
speech,  180 

Curtin,  Andrew  G.,  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania,  262 


Davis,  David,  lawyer  in  Spring- 
field. 111.,  83 

Davis,  Jefferson,  elected  Provi- 
sional President  of  Confederacy , 
215;  his  threats  against  the 
North,  216;  plea  for  State 
sovereignty,  275,  285;  repre- 
sented at  Niagara  Falls  Con- 
ference, and  visit  from  F.  P. 
Blair,  Sr.,  403  et  seq. 

Debt,  public,  in  1783,  2 

Decatur  County,  111.,  Lincoln 
settles  in,  44 

Democratic  Convention,  of  1860, 
190;  of  1864,  395;  Breckin- 
ridge  nominated  by,  191;  Mc- 
Clellan nominated  by,  395 

Dennison,  Governor  of  Ohio,  262 

Dix,  John  A.,  succeeds  Howell 
Cobb  as  Secretary  of  Treasury, 
212 

Dixie,  a  national  air,  235;  cap- 
tured, 389 


Index 


461 


Dixon,  John,  guide  in  Black 
Hawk  War,  39 

Donelson,  Fort,  capture  of,  322 

Dorsey,  Hazel,  Lincoln's  school- 
master, 31 

Douglas,  Stephen  A.,  a  lawyer  in 
Springfield,  111.,  83;  denounced 
for  pro-slavery  sentiments,  134; 
speech  in  Springfield,  111.,  137; 
with  Lincoln  in  Peoria,  140; 
opens  the  joint  debate  with 
Lincoln,  163;  his  early  history, 
163;  elected  Senator,  177; 
nominated  for  the  presidency, 
191;  on  the  stump  in  1860,  199 ; 
at  Lincoln's  inauguration,  236, 
244;  death  of,  274 

Draft,  ordered,  359;  riots  in  New 
York,  374 


E 


Early,  Jubal  A.,  Rebel  general, 
threatens  Washington,  391 

Electoral  vote,  1856,  159;  1860, 
200;  1864,  401 

Elkin,  Parson,  border  preacher, 
8 ;  funeral  sermon  at  Mrs.  Lin- 
coln's burial,  22 

Ellsworth,  Elmer,  death  of,  272 

Emancipation,  proclamations  of 
Fremont  and  Hunter,  295,  297; 
Lincoln's  message  concerning 
same,  298;  Lincoln  considers 
his  proclamation,  307;  it  is 
issued,  308;  full  text  of,  311- 

3*7 

Ewell,  Richard  S.,  Rebel  general, 
invades  Pennsylvania,  367 


Farragut,  Admiral  David  G., 
operations  in  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
324;  at  New  Orleans,  324 

Fessenden,  William  Pitt,  accepts 
the  Treasury,  435 

Fillmore,  Millard,  and  Donelson 
nominated,  156 

Fisher,  Fort,  capture  of,  441 

Floyd,  John  B.,  Secretary  of  War 
in  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  211;  at 
Fort  Donelson,  322 

Forquer,  George,  Lincoln's  en- 
counter with,  73 

Fort  Beargrass,  3 


|  Free  Soilers,  organize,  109;  Lin- 
coln leader  of,  151 
Fremont,  John  C.,  nominated  for 
President,  1856,  155;  anti- 
slavery  views,  293;  emancipa- 
tion proclamation,  294;  popu- 
larity, 295;  nominated  for 
President,  1864,  396 


G 


Garfield,  James  A.,  defeats  Rebel 
general,  H.  Marshall,  322;  re- 
port of  Lincoln's  capture  of 
Norfolk,  336 

Gettysburg,  battle  of,  366;  dedi- 
cation of  cemetery  at,  377 

Grant,  Gen.  Ulysses  S.,  his  rising, 
321;  "  unconditional  surren- 
der," 322;  capture  of  Forts 
Henry  and  Donelson,  322;  at 
Vicksburg,  365 ;  Lieutenant- 
General,  384;  at  the  Rapidan, 
387;  "fight  it  out  on  this  line," 
388;  suggested  for  the  presi- 
dency, 393 ;  Lee  seeks  inter- 
view with,  441;  conference 
with  Lincoln  and  Sherman, 
442 ;  envelops  Lee's  army,  444 

Greeley,  Horace,  Lincoln's  letter 
to,  305 ;  favors  a  foreign  arbi- 
tration, 354;  opposes  Lincoln, 
393;  at  Niagara  Conference, 
398 

Greene,  Bolin,  death  of,  68 


H 


Hale,  John  P.,  comments  on  Trent 
affair,  290,  291 

Half -faced  camp,  12 

Halleck,  Henry  W.,  at  Corinth, 
Miss.,  323;  called  to  Washing- 
ton, 341 ;  his  warning  to  Meade, 

37° 

Hamlin,  Hannibal,  nominated 
Vice-President,  196 

Hampton  Roads  Conference,  405 

Hanks,  Dennis,  20 

Hanks,  Nancy,  5 

Hanks,  Thomas,  43 ;  helping  Lin- 
coln, 44;  brings  rails  into  con- 
vention, 183 

Hardin,  John  J.,  elected  to  Con- 
gress, 98 


462 


Index 


Harper's  Ferry,  seized  by  Rebels, 
270,  271;  again  in  hands  of 
Rebels,  345 

Harrison,  William  Henry,  nomi- 
nated for  President,  86 ;  elected 

94 

Hatteras,  Fort,  capture  of,  283 
Hay,  Col.  John,  at  Niagara  Falls 

Conference,  398 

Hazel,  Caleb,  Lincoln's  school- 
master, 7,  10 

Henry,  Fort,  capture  of,  322 
Herndon,   William  H.,   Lincoln's 
partner,  82 ;    report  of  conver- 
sation with  Lincoln,  131 
Holt,  Joseph,  Secretary  of  War, 

213 

Hood,  Rebel  general,  390 
Hooker,  Joseph,  criticises  Burn- 
side,  354;  letter  from  Lincoln 
t°»  355J  at  Chancellors ville, 
357;  succeeded  by  Meade,  367; 
in  the  West,  380 

Hunter,  David,  his  emancipation 
proclamation,  297,  298;  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Shenandoah,  391 


Inauguration  of  Lincoln,  1861, 
236;  1865,  410 

Independence  Hall,  Lincoln  at 
flag-raising,  230 

Indiana,  early  times  in,  8;  ad- 
mitted to  the  Federal  Union, 
12;  condition  of,  after  War  of 
1812,  14 

J 

Jackson,  "Stonewall,"  in  the 
Shenandoah  Valley,  351 

Johnson,  Andrew,  nominated  for 
Vice-President,  394;  succeeds 
Lincoln,  455 

Johnston,  Albert  Sidney,  Rebel 
general  in  Tennessee,  323; 
killed  at  Shiloh,  323 

Johnston,  John,  Lincoln's  foster- 
brother,  47;  Lincoln's  letter  to, 
118 

K 

Kansas,  migration  to,  135;  great 
excitement  in,  144;  John 
Brown  in,  145 ;  election  methods 
in,  146;  governors  appointed 


to,  147;  Free-State  capital,  148; 
Lecompton,  148;  Lincoln's 
visit  to,  184 

Kentucky,  part  of  Virginia,  2; 
reply  to  call  for  troops,  261; 
provisional  Rebel  government 
of.  35i 

L 

Lane,  James  H.,  in  Kansas,  145 
Lecompton,    pro-slavery    capital 

of  Kansas,  148 
Lecompton  politicians,  160 
Lee,  Rebel  general,  in  Maryland, 
307;  seeks  an  interview  with 
Grant,  441;  his  surrender,  445 
Lincoln,  the  original  family,  2 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  born,  6;  boy- 
hood, 13;  early  labors,  17;  his 
first  letter,  21;  motherless,  23; 
his  first  books,  23 ;  his  Weems's 
Life  of  Washington,  24;  habit 
of  reading  aloud,  26;  his  step- 
mother, 27-29;  reads  Cooper's 
novels,  29;  Burns's  poems,  30; 
love  of  reading,  30;  a  wrestler, 
31;  eulogy  of  Henry  Clay,  32; 
mathematical  studies,  3  2 ;  saves 
life  of  a  neighbor,  33;  attends 
court  at  Boonville,  33;  prac- 
tises speech-making,  34;  exam- 
ples in  arithmetic,  35 ;  builds  a 
flat-boat,  36;  first  earnings,  37; 
second  voyage  down  the  Missis- 
sippi, 37;  his  bargain  with 
Gentry,  37;  adventure  with 
midnight  marauders,  39;  first 
view  of  slavery,  39;  stalwart 
young  pioneer,  41 ;  love  of  story 
telling,  4 1 ;  settlement  of  Lin- 
coins  in  Illinois,  44 ;  strikes  out 
for  himself,  44 ;  disaster  at  New 
Salem,  47;  his  invention,  47; 
second  visit  to  the  land  of 
slavery,  48 ;  the  Voudoo  seeress, 
48;  settles  in  New  Salem,  49; 
encounter  with  Jack  Armstrong 
50;  as  a  peacemaker,  52;  his 
newspaper  reading,  53;  studies 
grammar,  53;  his  first  law 
books,  5  5 ;  candidate  for  Legis- 
lature, 56;  in  the  Black  Hawk 
War,  57-60;  defeated  for  Legis- 
lature, 61;  personal  appearance 
as  young  man,  63 ;  buys  a  half 
interest  in  a  country  store,  64; 


Index 


463 


Lincoln — Continued. 

his  studies,  65 ;  appointed  post- 
,  master,  67;     settlement  of  an 
/"*   old   account,    68;      elected   to 
Legislature,  70;    re-elected,  72; 
his  political  platform,  72;    tilt 
with  George  Forquer,   73;   en- 
counter    with     Col.     Richard 
Taylor,  74;    the  Lincoln-Stone 

grotest,  77;  removes  to  Spring- 
eld,  78;  friendship  with  Speed, 
79;  travels  the  circuit,  81; 
partnership  with  Stuart,  82; 
with  S.  T.  Logan,  82 ;  with  W. 
H.  Herndon,  82;  writes  a  lec- 
ture, 84;  love  for  Ann  Rutledge 
88;  matrimonial  engagement 
with  Miss  Mary  Todd,  90;  the 
Shields  -  Lincoln  ' '  duel , "  91; 
advice  to  a  young  officer,  93; 
marriage,  93;  lecture  on  drink- 
ing usages,  95;  meets  Martin 
Van  Buren,  96;  visits  Henry 
Clay,  100;  nominated  to  Con- 
gress, 101;  elected,  102;  reso- 
lutions on  the  Mexican  War, 
104;  Alexander  H.  Stephens' s 
opinion  of  him,  105;  Lincoln  on 
Cass,  1 06;  on  Polk,  107;  goes 
to  New  England,  no;  bill  to 
abolish  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  113;  candidate 
for  Land  Commissioner,  114; 
offered  governorship  of  Oregon, 
115;  letter  to  his  step-brother, 
118;  value  of  his  Springfield 
property,  118;  the  "Snow 
boys'"  case,  122;  case  of 
Nancy,  the  negro  girl,  124;  the 
negro  boy  seized  in  New  Or- 
leans, 125;  his  oratorical  man- 
ner, 130;  his  despondency,  131; 
elector  on  Whig  ticket,  132; 
speaks  in  Springfield,  137;  with 
Douglas  in  Peoria,  140;  candi- 
date for  the  U.  S.  Senate,  142; 
letter  to  Speed,  148;  his  views 
on  colonization,  150;  leader  of 
the  Free-Soil  party,  151 ;  speech 
in  the  Republican  Convention, 
Bloomington,  154;  nominated 
for  Senator,  162;  Lincoln- 
Douglas  campaign  arranged, 
163;  his  autobiography,  165; 
facetious  speech  on  his  political 
prospects,  169;  speech  at 


Charleston,  111.,  174;  views  on 
naturalized  foreigners,  182 ;  first 
named  for  presidency,  1^3; 
visits  Kansas,  184;  speech  at 
Cooper  Union,  185;  nominated 
for  President  at  Chicago,  196; 
accepts  nomination,  197,  198; 
elected  President,  200;  curious 
optical  illusion,  201;  Cabinet- 
making,  203;  his  policy,  207; 
his  humor,  207;  his  religious 
views,  208;  prediction  of  day 
of  wrath,  209;  departure  for 
Washington,  219;  threats 
against  his  life,  2 19 ;  journey  to 
Washington,  219-234;  inaugu- 
ration, 236;  names  his  Cabinet, 
246;  besieged  by  office-seekers, 
251;  refuses  to  receive  Rebel 
emissaries,  252;  sends  a  mes- 
sage to  Charleston,  253;  first 
call  for  troops,  259;  his  dark 
days,  264;  declares  a  blockade, 
268;  reply  to  Virginia  dele- 
gates, 269;  depressed  by  Bull 
Run  defeat  282;  message  to 
Congress,  July,  1861,  284;  his 
demand  for  men  and  money, 
286;  overrules  Fremont  and 
Hunter,  298;  special  message 
to  Congress,  March,  1862,  and 
border-State  conference,  300- 
303;  letter  to  Horace  Greeley, 
305;  considers  the  issuing  of 
an  emancipation  proclamation, 
307;  proclamation  issued,  307; 
plan  of  military  operations,  320 ; 
farewell  to  Gen.  Scott,  321; 
reads  military  strategy,  326; 
letter  to  McClellan,  328 ;  death  of 
his  son  Willie,  330;  letter  of  re- 
monstrance to  McClellan,  332; 
sends  Franklin's  division  to  Mc- 
Clellan, 333 ;  causes  of  disagree- 
ment with  McClellan,  334;  his 
capture  of  Norfolk,  336;  re- 
ceives McClellan's  Harrison 
Landing  letter,  338;  visits  Mc- 
Clellan, 339,  340;  importuned 
to  reinstate  McClellan,  352; 
correspondence  with  Fernando 
Wood,  352;  "pegging  away/' 
355;  letter  to  Hooker,  355; 
visits  Hooker's  headquarters, 
356;  after  the  battle  of  Chan- 
cellorsville,  358;  deals  with 


464 


Index 


Lincoln— Continued. 

Vallandigham,  363;  letter  to 
Grant,  366 ;  announces  victories 
of  Army  of  the  Potomac,  371; 
speech  at  serenade,  371;  pro- 
clamation of  Thanksgiving,  372 ; 
letter  to  Springfield  war  meet- 
ing, 376;  address  at  Gettysburg 
battle-ground,  378;  letter  about 
Sabbath-breaking  in  the  army, 
380;  joke  as  to  Burnside's 
being  lost,  381;  "swap  horses 
while  crossing  a  stream,"  383; 
address  to  Grant,  385 ;  on 
Hoods  defeat,  390;  his  re- 
nomination  opposed,  392;  on 
Grant's  possible  nomination, 
393;  his  second  nomination, 
393;  letter  accepting  nomina- 
tion, 394;  Niagara  Falls  Con- 
ference, 398;  issues  call  for 
500,000  men,  401;  his  despatch 
announcing  his  election,  402; 
Hampton  Roads  Conference, 
406 ;  reply  to  two  Rebel  ladies, 
410;  second  inauguration  ,410; 
family  life  in  the  White  House, 
415  et  seq.;  his  relations  to  E. 
D.  Baker,  415;  his  love  of 
music,  417;  his  sons,  418;  his 
habits  in  Washington,  421; 
details  of  office  work,  426;  his 
relations  with  his  Cabinet,  427; 
his  reply  to  Seward,  430;  re- 
lations with  Seward,  431;  re- 
vises Seward's  foreign  despatch, 
432;  defends  Cameron,  434; 
appoints  S.  P.  Chase  Chief - 
Justice,  436;  does  not  expect 
re-election,  438;  his  firmness, 
439 ;  proposes  payment  for  free- 
dom of  slaves,  440;  conference 
with  Grant  and  Sherman,  442; 
at  City  Point,  and  visits  Rich- 
mond, 443;  serenaded  on  his 
return,  447;  his  last  speech, 
450;  his  assassination  and 
death,  452-454;  his  funeral, 

.455.  456 
Lincoln,    Abraham,    grandfather 

of  the  President,  3 
Lincoln,  Josiah,  3 
Lincoln,  Mary,  4 
Lincoln,  Mordecai,  3 
Lincoln,  Nancy,  4 
Lincoln,  Robert,  418 


Lincoln,  Thomas,  father  of  the 
President,  his  escape  from  an 
Indian,  3 ;  a  laboring  man,  5 ; 
marriage,  5;  migrates  to  In- 
diana, 8-1 1 ;  builds  a  cabin,  15 ; 
his  se-ond  marriage,  27;  death 
of,  131 

Lincoln,  Thomas  ("Tad"),  418 

Lincoln,  Willie,  418 

"Loco-Foco,"  origin  of,  94 

Logan,  Stephen  T.,  associated 
vrith  Lincoln,  82 

Log-cabin,  building,  16;  cam- 
paign, 86 

"Long  Nine,"  the,  76 

"Lost  Townships,"  letters  from, 

9°.    . 

Louisville  Ky.,  menaced  by 
Rebels,  351 

M 

McClellan,  Gen.  George  B.,  in 
West  Virginia,  283;  his  early 
fame,  293;  views  on  slavery, 
293,  300;  inactive  near  Wash- 
ington, 304;  zenith  of  his  fame, 
318;  .choice  of  Democratic 
politicians,  325;  demurs  to 
plan  of  operations,  328;  letter 
from  Lincoln  as  to  plans,  328; 
peninsular  campaign,  331^  scq.; 
receives  Franklin's  division, 
333;  asks  .permission  to  give 
political  views  to  Lincoln,  333; 
bitter  letter  to  Secretary  of 
War,  338 ;  his  views  on  the  gen- 
eral situation,  338;  fails  to  sup- 
port Pope,  343 ;  at  the  head  of 
reorganized  army,  344;  re- 
lieved of  his  command,  347* 
nominated  for  President,  395 
McDowell,  Irvin,  at  Bull  Run,  280 
Manassas,  abandoned  by  the 
Rebels,  329 ;  its  "  Quaker  guns," 

329 
Marcy,  William  L.,  Secretary  of 

State,  205 

Martial  law  proclaimed,  359 
Maryland,    response    to    call    for 

troops,  261;  vote  for  President 

in  1860,  266;    Seward's  rebuke 

of,  266;    invaded  by  Lee,  307; 

abolishes  slavery,  400 
Mason  and  Slidell,  seizure  of,  etc., 

288-291 


Index 


465 


Massachusetts,  Sixth  Regiment 
fired  on  in  Baltimore,  264 

Meade,  George  G.,  succeeds 
Hooker,  367;  at  the  battle  of 
Gettysburg,  370;  warned  by 
Halleck,  370 

Mexican  War,  Lincoln's  opposi- 
tion to,  105 

Migration,   Western,   in   1783,   2 

"Milk  sick,"  the,  19 

Missouri,  reply  to  call  for  troops, 
261;  Fremont  in,  294;  dis- 
orders in,  294 

Missouri  Compromise,  repeal  of, 

J33 
Monitor  and  Merrimac,  fight  of, 

33° 

Morgan,  Edwin  D.,  Governor  of 
New  York,  262 


N 


Nancy,  negro  girl,  Lincoln  tries 

case  of,  124 
Naturalized  foreigners,  Lincoln's 

views  concerning,  182 
Navy  yard  at  Norfolk  seized  by 

Rebels,  271 

Negro  troops  enlisted,  359 
New  Orleans,  Lincoln's  visit  to, 

48;  slave  case  in,  125;   capture 

of,  324 
New  Salem,  111.,  Lincoln's  disaster 

at,  47 ;  he  takes  up  his  residence 

in,  49;  is  postmaster  of,  67 
Newspapers  suppressed  by  slave- 
holders, 109 

Niagara  Falls  Conference,  397 
Nolin  Creek,  the  Lincoln  residence 

near,  5 
North  Carolina,  reply  to  call  for 

troops,  261 


Optical  illusion,  Lincoln's  story 
of,  201 

Ordinance  of  secession  adopted, 
214 

Oregon,  Lincoln  offered  governor- 
ship of,  115 


Patterson,   Gen.   Robert,  at  the 
battle  of  Bull  Run,  280 


Peace,  Congress  in  Washington, 
217;  Democrats,  352 

Pea  Ridge,  battle  of,  323 

Pendletpn,  George  H.,  nominated 
for  Vice-President,  396 

Peninsular  campaign,  331  et  sea. 

Peoria,  111.,  Lincoln  and  Douglas 
in,  140 

Pickens,  Fort,  relieved,  256 

Pierpont,  Francis  H.,  Governor  of 
West  Virginia,  283 

Polk,  James  K.,  elected  President, 
99;  Lincoln  criticises,  107 

Pope,  Gen.  John,  on  th.,  Missis- 
sippi, 323;  called  to  the  East, 
341;  takes  a  new  command, 
341;  Army  of  the  Potomac  to 
support  him,  342 ;  driven  back 
upon  Washington,  343 

Porter,  Fitz-John,  his  failure  to 
support  Pope,  343 

Port  Royal,  South  Carolina,  cap- 
ture of,  283 

Preaching,  backwoods,  7 

Pryor,  Roger  A.,  Rebel  leader,  254 

Public  debt,  1783,  2 

R 

Rails  and  rail-splitting,  198 
Rebel  Congress  at  Montgomery, 

252 
Rebel  emissaries  in  Washington, 

252 
Rebel    leaders,    disconcerted    by 

Lincoln,  241 
Republican  party,  birth  of,  153; 

Convention  of ,  1860,  192;  1864, 

393 

Richmond,  capital  of  Confeder- 
acy, 270;  capture  of,  446 

Riney,  Zachariah,  Lincoln's 
schoolmaster,  7 

Roanoke  Island,  capture  of,  323 

Robinson,  Charles,  early  Govern- 
or of  Kansas,  145  146 

Rosecrans,  W.  S.,  at  battle  of 
Stone  River,  352 

Russell,  Lord  John,  derides  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation,  310 

Rutledge,  Ann,  Lincoln's  early 
love,  88 

S 

Scott,  Dred,  decision  in  case  of, 
167 


466 


Index 


Scott,  Winfield,  warns  Lincoln  at 
Harrisburg,  230;  at  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  236;  a  veteran  of 
the  Mexican  War,  319;  retired, 
320 

Secession  of  seven  States,  214 

Settlers,  early,  in  Indiana,  15 

Seward,  W.  H.,  supports  Gen. 
Taylor's  candidacy,  no;  candi- 
date before  the  Chicago  Conven- 
tion, 1860,  193;  as  "Premier," 
248 ;  rebuke  to  Maryland, 
266;  at  Hampton  Roads  Con- 
ference, 406;  and  Lincoln's  in- 
augural address,  1861,  428; 
estimate  of  Lincoln,  428;  pro- 
poses a  foreign  war,  430;  as- 
sault on,  454 

Sheridan,  Philip  H.,  in  Shenan- 
doah  Valley,  392;  encircles 
Rebel  army  at  Appomattpx, 
442;  captures  Lee's  supplies, 
443 

Sherman,  William  T.,  at  Vicks- 
burg,  351,  352;  under  Grant, 
380,  381;  succeeds  Grant  in 
command  of  Division  of  the 
Mississippi,  387;  invests  At- 
lanta, 389;  march  to  the  sea, 
409;  conference  with  Lincoln 
and  Grant,  442 

Shields,  James,  "duel"  with  Lin- 
coln, 9 1 ;  Senator  from  Illinois, 
141  x 

Shiloh,  battle  of,  323 

Ship  Island,  323 

Slavery,  Lincoln's  first  view  of, 
39;  bill  to  abolish,  in  District 
of  Columbia,  113;  death  knell 
of,  134;  abolished  in  Maryland, 
400 

"Snow  boys,"  Lincoln  tries  suit 
against,  122 

South  Mountain,  battle  of,  307 

Sparrow,  Mrs.  Betsey,  19 

Speed,  Joshua,  Lincoln's  friend, 
148;  Lincoln's  letter  to,  148 

Spencer  County,  Ind.,  the  Lin- 
coins  in,  9 

"Spot"  Lincoln,  105 

Sprague,  William,  Governor  of 
Rhode  Island,  262 

Springfield,  111.,  Lincoln  removes 
to,  78;  first  great  speech  in,  136 
Lincoln  in,  215;  his  departure 
from,  219 


Stanton,  Edwin  M.,  Attorney- 
General  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet, 
213;  Secretary  of  War  under 
Lincoln,  249;  anecdote  of,  424; 
first  opinion  of  Lincoln's  war 
policy,  429 

Steamboat,  first,  on  Lake  Erie,  15 

Stephens,  Alexander  H.,  Vice- 
President  of  Confederacy,  215; 
endeavors  to  dissuade  secession 
216;  at  Hampton  Roads  Con- 
ference, 404;  his  report  of,  408 

Stone,  Dan,  and  Lincoln  protest 
against  slavery,  77 

Stone,  Charles  P.,  in  command  at 
Washington,  267 

Stone  River,  battle  of,  352 

Stuart,  James  E.  B.,  Rebel  gen- 
eral, raids  Chambersburg,  Pa., 
346 

Stuart,  John  T.,  Lincoln's  part- 
ner, 82 

"Sugar-coated,"  Lincoln's  use  of 
phrase,  286 

Sumter,  Fort,  surrender  of,  257 

Superstitions  of  frontier  settlers, 
18 

Surveyor,  Lincoln  as,  66 

T 

Taney,  Roger  B.,  Chief -Justice, 
Dred  Scott  case,  167;  succeeded 
by  S.  P.  Chase,  436 

Taylor,  Richard,  on  the  stump  in 
Illinois,  74 

Taylor,  Zachary,  in  Black  Hawk 
War,  58;  nominated  for  Presi- 
dent, 107;  elected,  in 

Tennessee,  reply  to  call  for  troops, 
261 

Texas  admitted  to  the  Union,  101 

Thanksgiving  for  Union  victories, 

372 

Thomas,  George  H.,  defeats  Gen- 
erals Zollikoffer  and  Crittenden, 
322;  in  command  of  Army  of 
the  Cumberland,  322;  at  Nash- 
ville, 390 

Thompson,  Jacob,  Secretary  of 
Interior  in  Buchanan's  Cabinet, 

397 

Tod,  David,  declines  the  Treasury 
435 

Todd,  Mary,  letters  from  "Lost 
Townships,"  91;  marries  Lin- 
coln, 93 


Index 


467 


Topeka,  Kan.,  free-State  capital, 

148 
Toucey,  Isaac,  Secretary  of  Navy 

in  Buchanan's  Cabinet,  211 
Treason  in  Washington,  246 
Trent  affair,  The,  288-291 
Trumbull,  Lyman,  on  Illinois  cir- 
cuit, 83 ;  candidate  for  Senator, 
142 

Tyler,  John,  Vice-President  and 
President,  109 

V 

Vallandigham,  Clement  L.,  op- 
poses the  war,  362;  expelled 
from  the  North,  363;  nomi- 
nated for  Governor  of  Ohio, 
363;  his  return  to  the  North, 

364 

Van  Buren,  Martin,  nominated 
for  President,  86;  meets  Lin- 
coln, 96 

Vicksburg,  assaulted  by  Sherman, 

351.  3S2;  fal1  of»  364 
Virginia,  reply  to  call  for  troops, 
261;    convention  of  1861,  268; 
secession  of,  270 


Vote,  electoral,  1856,  159;    1860, 

200;  1864,  401 
Voudoo  seeress,  48 

W 

Washington,  treason  in,  246;  news 
of  Lee's  surrender  in,  442 

Weems,  Mason  L.,  Life  of  Wash- 
ington, 24;  Lincoln's  reference 
to  book,  227 

Weitzel,  Godfrey,  in  Richmond, 

443 

Western  immigration  in  1873,  2 
West  Virginia  organized,  283 
Whiskey  as  currency,  9 
"Wide-awakes"  organized,  198 
Wilderness,  battle  of  the,  388 
Wilkes,  Captain  Charles,  and  the 

Trent  affair,  288 

Wines  sent  to  Lincoln  on  nomi- 
nation, 197 

Wood,  Fernando,  favors  making 
New  York  a  free  city,  226;  his 
correspondence  with  Lincoln, 
352 


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